2 weeks and noone has viewed the house

Selphie1UK

Ok so another thing came to light yesterday, when the EA came to sign contracts we had to pay an anti laundering fee of £60, she said she needed this upfront has she couldn't place the house on the market until this was done, so I asked her yesterday for the invoice for this hasnits been over 2 weeks and she said she couldn't do it because we didn't give her the correct identity proof, we gave her a bank statement, passports and a utility bill, I believe she never actually intended to do it!

pinkshoes

Selphie1UK said:

Ok so another thing came to light yesterday, when the EA came to sign contracts we had to pay an anti laundering fee of £60, she said she needed this upfront has she couldn't place the house on the market until this was done, so I asked her yesterday for the invoice for this hasnits been over 2 weeks and she said she couldn't do it because we didn't give her the correct identity proof, we gave her a bank statement, passports and a utility bill, I believe she never actually intended to do it!

You're still clutching at straws here.

What identify and proof did she ask for? EAs have to have an AML policy as they can't sell properties until they can do background checks and financial checks on people.0

The bottom line is that you made a mistake by choosing to list your house with an EA without doing your own due diligence checks to see that they use Rightmove to list their properties. 

You are requesting to cancel after 13 days so a fee is absolutely due. I would offer them the £495, less say £60 for the 2 hours you have spent going back and forth trying to get them to correct their mistakes. 

Of course you don't have to pay them, but you have signed a contract, so they will just send you a letter before action, take you to court if you still refuse to pay, then they'll get their money and you'll also end up paying court fees. 

Are you in a hurry to sell? If you don't want to pay their fee, then you'll just have to stick with them, and get on their case EVERY DAY making sure the advert is correct and that they're making the effort to let people know it's for sale. 

Bigphil1474

So you're due that money back if she hasn't done it.

I think best you can do is ask for a breakdown of the costs and pay what they can justify. To be honest, you'll probably waste a lot more than that before you get moved. We nearly lost £1k in surveys and search fees after our buyer pulled out as the people we were buying from couldn't wait. Fortunately we got another buyer pretty quick so back on track. We've also spent £250 getting a damp and timber survey on our own house to show we don't have a problem due to the first buyers surveyor making some dubious comments in his report. 

Selphie1UK

Bigphil1474 said:

So you're due that money back if she hasn't done it.

I think best you can do is ask for a breakdown of the costs and pay what they can justify. To be honest, you'll probably waste a lot more than that before you get moved. We nearly lost £1k in surveys and search fees after our buyer pulled out as the people we were buying from couldn't wait. Fortunately we got another buyer pretty quick so back on track. We've also spent £250 getting a damp and timber survey on our own house to show we don't have a problem due to the first buyers surveyor making some dubious comments in his report. 

Yeah I've asked a few times now for a breakdown of costs before I pay anything, but she refuses to do this.

Selphie1UK

pinkshoes said:

Selphie1UK said:

Ok so another thing came to light yesterday, when the EA came to sign contracts we had to pay an anti laundering fee of £60, she said she needed this upfront has she couldn't place the house on the market until this was done, so I asked her yesterday for the invoice for this hasnits been over 2 weeks and she said she couldn't do it because we didn't give her the correct identity proof, we gave her a bank statement, passports and a utility bill, I believe she never actually intended to do it!

You're still clutching at straws here.

What identify and proof did she ask for? EAs have to have an AML policy as they can't sell properties until they can do background checks and financial checks on people.0

The bottom line is that you made a mistake by choosing to list your house with an EA without doing your own due diligence checks to see that they use Rightmove to list their properties. 

You are requesting to cancel after 13 days so a fee is absolutely due. I would offer them the £495, less say £60 for the 2 hours you have spent going back and forth trying to get them to correct their mistakes. 

Of course you don't have to pay them, but you have signed a contract, so they will just send you a letter before action, take you to court if you still refuse to pay, then they'll get their money and you'll also end up paying court fees. 

Are you in a hurry to sell? If you don't want to pay their fee, then you'll just have to stick with them, and get on their case EVERY DAY making sure the advert is correct and that they're making the effort to let people know it's for sale. 

We gave her passport, driving licence, energy bill and bank statement for the AML, we have asked for a breakdown of costs, this is all we are asking for before we pay any costs, which I think is a reasonable request, but after 3 requests the EA hasn't given us this and will only state we owe £495, we have not been contacted once since the house went up for sale, no emails,no viewings nothing, she did the photos herself and put the property on Facebook and Zoopla, plus the time taken to write the listing, I appreciate this is time and money but after speaking to another estate agent it wouldn't add up to what is being asked off us.

kinger101

Selphie1UK said:

bobster2 said:

Selphie1UK said:

bobster2 said:

How much is your house on the market for? And was their full fee going to be when sold? E.g. 1%? Or a fixed amount?

House is on the market for £285000, selling costs 1.2%

So their expected fee would have been £3420 and they want £495 for the work done so far - e.g. photos and marketing. That sounds quite reasonable to me.

Well all they have done is write the listing which I had to spell check for them, the agent took the photos while she was valuing the property, the valuation was free, they have miss sized every room in my house some by up to 4 ft, put my living room is 8 ft wide when it's 13, this will have a detrimental effect on my property when I list with someone else, because prospective buyers who may have been interested will have been put off by the small rooms and won't bother to click on the listing again, she's failed to update the EPC after a week, the list goes on, I have had zero correspondence from her since she came to value the house!

I would offer them the option of accepting £250 or having the level of service they've provided reviewed by the ombudsman scheme of which they are a member.  

An EA raking photos on the valuation sounds amateurish.  Not being able to measure room is negligent.

1.2 percent with or without VAT is a fairly standard fee so for the standard of service they are providing, they are not good value.

I had a similar valued properly listed accurately on all three sites with virtual tour for 1 percent plus VAT.  And that's in the SE.

BungalowBel

ognum said:

Selling is about price.  I have justbsold two properties at asking price.  The price we asked for didn't gouge the market and took into account the work needed or done.  One a family house that needs work has completed the other a small flat is progressing.  Both had the standard 10 viewers, both SSC within 20 days.

Get the price right it will sell.

I agree about the price (we have a flat sold STC to the first person who viewed it, the second day on the market), but I think it also needs to go on RM otherwise no-one will see the advert.  We went with YOPA purely to get it listed on RM, otherwise we were quite happy to do viewings and negotiations ourselves.

tooldle

Our local  agent who is by far the biggest player in our city, does not use Rightmove. They list with ‘Onthemarket’ and ‘zoopla’ and have their own searchable webpage. Their property seems to shift whilst Rightmove for our area is quite static. 

ashe

Our EA did this, its sneaky but little you can do, stop stressing about it - it is what it is. 

What we did to get around it though was email them and say we'd decided we wanted an extra 100k for the house. They were saying they were "bound" by the contract so couldn't alter it - I said no, you don't WANT to alter it, which is fine - but that is your choice - my choice is to increase the price by 100k, waste your time (and mine) and see out that contract knowing its got a 100% chance of NOT selling, and then go with a competitor - or you can make the changes we asked for".

They made the changes.