Receiving a private offer on house sale

KLASLETT

My house has been on the market for a couple of weeks with no offers as yet. I have had someone knock on the door and are interested in the property and asked if I would be prepared to deal directly and not via the estate agent, presumably to negotiate a cheaper price.

Is this an acceptable practise? Would I still have to pay estate agent fees?

Any assistance would be appreciated.

nearlyrich

I guess you need to look at the contract but I would bet that the estate agent will want the fee, the obvious thing is how did the prospective buyer know you were selling, maybe the estate agent's board or advert had something to do with it?

dean_ham

This is what i cant understand. Why cant we have a website that deals with Private properties for sale. If you can sell a car on autotrader.co.uk why can you sell a house on housetrader.co.uk :P

I heard a couple, maybe 2-3 of months ago that tesco was going to start advertising homes for sale in local stores and charge very little etc etc. Any truth in this?

Ian_W

KLASLETT wrote: Is this an acceptable practise? Would I still have to pay estate agent fees?

In summary I think it's, No & Yes.

If you're on with one agent on a sole agency agreement it is possible & quite legit for you, at the same time, to advertise privately in the local press or using internet sites like "houseweb" and if you find the purchaser you don't pay the agent. At least that's my understanding, but you'd be as well informing the EA that you were going to do that.

If, as seems to be the case here, the person has become aware you're for sale through the Agents board, shop window display or ads in the local property press then the EA will expect their fees. I think they would also be pretty quick to sue if they didn't get them - undermines the whole basis on which they operate, otherwise.

dean_ham - there are dozens of websites that deal with private sales [search these threads, loads of references to them] and there is absolutely no reason why you can't sell through them or private ads in the local press. No reason why you need ever employ an EA to sell your property, except one. It's where most people start their search when they're buying a house.

dean_ham

Ian_W wrote:

dean_ham - there are dozens of websites that deal with private sales [search these threads, loads of references to them] and there is absolutely no reason why you can't sell through them or private ads in the local press. No reason why you need ever employ an EA to sell your property, except one. It's where most people start their search when they're buying a house.

Houseweb would be one then.

I am only 20 years old so have never dealt with EA, but from what ive read on these boards half of the EA are nightmares to deal with.

How simple is it purchasing a home privately?

1. Knock knock, home for sale? £50,000 ? DEAL

2. Conduct a survey on property, if survey comes back all ok.... search for mortgage

3. Mortgage accepted, wait for home owner to move out.

4. Welcome to my new home

Or is it a much complicated than that

Ian_W

Hi dean,
It's pretty much as simple as that with 1 extra stage you missed, but at the same time at any stage can get much more complicated. A good EA, and there are some, can help smooth out the complications as they crop up. What you see about EA's on these threads is where problems have occurred often through the EA's fault, sometimes not, but the EA as the go between gets blamed, it's called shooting the messenger! People don't tend to post when things have gone smoothly and they've no complaint.

There are good EA's, bad ones and many shades in between. They work for the seller on commission only [no sale, no fee] and are virtually unregulated. But as I said earlier it's still the place most go when they want to sell their house, or buy another one. Houseweb is 1 company but someone published a list of about a dozen free/low cost sites on a previous thread a month or 2 back, maybe this method of selling will grow to replace EA's - but it's nowhere near that yet.

The stage you didn't include is appointing a solicitor who will look after your interests regarding the sale. They'll check the person selling has clear title and advise you on any obligations you have when you own it - for example, our prop deeds require us to maintain certain things, like fences etc. With a flat it's even more complicated, with ground rents, service fees etc. Also the sol will tie in the mortgage so it's shown as a legal charge against the property and then register change of ownership with the land registry.

At the risk of going on too long, the sort of complications that can arise at any stage might be negotiations on price, arrangement of mortgage, survey coming back with problems where you'd still buy but need to get the vendor to allow for work in the price and so on.

Hope that helps.

theGrinch

it comes down to how the buyer became aware of your property. if it was via a sale board, local advert or agent details then yes the agent will want their fee.

if it was via a private sale web site then you need to check your agreement, but it is usually ok.

i once sold by telling a neighbour I was selling and she told her daughter and even though I had an agent, I didnt pay anything as the neighbour only found out through word of mouth. there was no sales board and no local press adverts....and I was glad the agent got nothing for doing nothing.

Raja_3

I need to bring up an old thread:

I have for sale boards outside my house; a neighbour of mine (whom I told about the sale of the place before the sale boards went up) has placed an offer on my place privately. Would I still need to pay the agent their fees? (The place has been on the market for a few months).

Where do I stand as per the letter of the law? Would there need to be specific clauses in a contract for a agent to charge their fees?

Jorgan_2

Have you signed a sole agency agreement or sole selling rights agreement with your agent? The second agreement means that if you agree a sale to your brother the agent is entitiled to the commission, they usually have a clause about private sales in their agreement.

The sole agency agreement is slightly harder to define. Some agents have clauses in their contract advising that if a buyer became aware of the property because they had a For Sale board out side, they would have made an introduction to the property and are therefore entilted to their commission.

Check the small print on what you have signed, that should make things clearer.

Hope that helps.

Tassotti

Jorgan wrote:

Have you signed a sole agency agreement or sole selling rights agreement with your agent? The second agreement means that if you agree a sale to your brother the agent is entitiled to the commission, they usually have a clause about private sales in their agreement.

This is the critical thing you need to check. Sole Agency or Sole Selling rights.

If the private buyer is registered with the agency, the agents are entitled to thier fees, otherwise you can sell without any agency fees

cally1_2

We sold our house privately after trying to sell with an estate agent for 3 months.

Whether you pay fees is dependant on how your buyer heard about your property. If you have a For Sale board up outside or they saw an ad in paper/internet then you would need to pay fees to EA as far as I understand it.

Our buyer heard about our house through a mutual friend who passed on her phone number to us. Hence no fees to EA - we had no For Sale sign up.

We then negotiated the price. Instructed our solictitor who we passed all of their details to. The rest was pretty easy.

Our solicitor did make us wait the two weeks it took us to give notice to our EA though before any paperwork was started. Hence we were no longer contratced to them (trhe EA) iyswim.

Problems (and there were many) were easier to sort out face to face without an EA passing messages back and forth. In fact the biggest problem was the FTB that the EA was supposed to be dealing with!