What are default terms for estate agent marketing a property?

j368

Hi,

An estate agent has been marketing our property for almost 2 months now and although he found a buyer and we agreed the price offered over a week ago, the buyer is no longer replying to EA's attempts to contact him, so we are assuming the buyer is 'lost'. 

We would like to move to another agent but, as we never signed any contract with the current agent, wonder what implied terms we have accepted.

We asked several times to see their T&Cs, but all we ever received was an email suggesting a price and fee on sale. All of which we agreed to verbally / by email. No minimum term of marketing was mentioned.

Thanks

eddddy

j368 said:

We would like to move to another agent but, as we never signed any contract with the current agent, wonder what implied terms we have accepted.

We asked several times to see their T&Cs, but all we ever received was an email suggesting a price and fee on sale. All of which we agreed to verbally / by email. No minimum term of marketing was mentioned.

Are you sure that the agent never gave you a copy of their terms of business (or pointed you towards the terms on their website, etc) at any point?

For example, when the agent initially visited your property to do an appraisal/valuation?

That would be very unusual.

If so, in your situation, I would maybe send an email to the estate agent that says something like...

"I wish to terminate my contract with you. You didn't mention a notice period for termination, before I instructed you, and you didn't provide me with any written terms of business or similar, so I'm assuming I can terminate the contract with immediate effect. So please reply confirming that the contract has now ended."


And see what they say. For example, see if they claim they gave you their written terms of business. (Is it possible that you missed an email, or an email went to your spam folder?)

I guess your next steps would depend on what they say in reply.

j368

eddddy said:

j368 said:

We would like to move to another agent but, as we never signed any contract with the current agent, wonder what implied terms we have accepted.

We asked several times to see their T&Cs, but all we ever received was an email suggesting a price and fee on sale. All of which we agreed to verbally / by email. No minimum term of marketing was mentioned.

Are you sure that the agent never gave you a copy of their terms of business (or pointed you towards the terms on their website, etc) at any point?

For example, when the agent initially visited your property to do an appraisal/valuation?

That would be very unusual.

If so, in your situation, I would maybe send an email to the estate agent that says something like...

"I wish to terminate my contract with you. You didn't mention a notice period for termination, before I instructed you, and you didn't provide me with any written terms of business or similar, so I'm assuming I can terminate the contract with immediate effect. So please reply confirming that the contract has now ended."


And see what they say. For example, see if they claim they gave you their written terms of business. (Is it possible that you missed an email, or an email went to your spam folder?)

I guess your next steps would depend on what they say in reply.

Thanks. Apologies, I should have made clear that this was a flat we have been renting out through the same EA for several years, and now we have decided to sell it.  So they are very familiar with the property and already hold keys. All arrangements have been done by phone / email as we have now moved out of the area.

At the end of the current tenancy we just asked them to get their sales department involved, and the sales department emailed a suggested price and their fee, both of which we accepted.

We asked both by email and verbally for T&Cs, and have been promised them, but never received. The EA is a regular correspondent and white-listed, so pretty unlikely that both of us (copied in) would have missed it.

Thanks for the suggested wording. We're waiting for them to sort out our deductions from the tenant deposit, but once that's all resolved we'll look to replace them with a different agent.

Cheers 

eddddy

OK - so the situation would be the same when you eventually want to terminate the selling contract.

The Estate Agent can't introduce new terms (e.g. minimum contract period, notice period, etc), after you entered into the contract (i.e. after you instructed them to market the property.)

They can only rely on the terms that they told you about (or terms that a reasonable person would expect) before you instructed them.



It might be worth checking the contract you signed with them for letting/managing your property - it might say something about terms if you then instruct them to sell the property. 

(But a court has decided that selling terms in a letting contract are 'unfair contract terms' - so those terms might not be enforceable anyway.)

j368

Ah. Good point, thanks. Will dig that out.