no contract

homesick_2

Hi
could any of you tell us where we stand, we have recently had our house on the market and managed to get a buyer, all good so far till things went !!!! up and we had to back out of the sell we as well as them were upset. Anyway to get to the point the estate agent has sent us a nice hefty bill totalling £1400.00, we were willing to pay for advertising costs etc but this is a bit much considering she didn't seem to feel the need to advertise anywhere but her shop window ! Now the thing is we have never seen or signed a contract so does that mean she hasn't got any legal rights to make us pay, like I said we would have paid her a certain amount towards costs if she hadn't been so crappy with us. What do you think, thanks,
homesick

PasturesNew

Most contracts in my experience have had a clause in that if they find you a buyer who is ready and able to complete the purchase, then you have to pay them for their efforts if you just pull out.

However, as you say you have not signed a contract, then they can't bill you. So your way forward is to write to them, asking them to forward you a copy of your signed contract.

As they can't, the bill most likely isn't valid.

EAs write some nasty tight contracts, so if they've failed to get you to sign it, it's probably their tough titty.

If push comes to shove though, do bear in mind that they kept their end of the bargain and found you a buyer ready, willing and able to proceed/complete.

The fact they don't have a contract signed by you is probably not something they know yet. They just issue an automatic bill when a file is closed.

jammie*dodger

You didn't sign anything?

That's unbelievable. If you're sure then I don't see that you owe her anything.

SquatNow

With all respect to the OP and all credit to the EA... the EA probably wasn't panicking about a signed contract as they didn't expect the OP to pi$$ them about.

I mean, the fact that the EA found a buyer in the current market is f**king incredible... they probably expected the seller to be bowing at their feet.

homesick_2

Hi everyone thanks for the replies. I always thought that unless you sign a contract things aren't legally binding, so I will send a letter requesting a copy of so called contract:rolleyes: ! And yeah it does sound stupid to let a buyer go with the way things are but if I tell you I'm still crying now and we didn't have any choice you will see it was not an easy decision, thanks again
homesick