Estate Agents - advice please

squaredoggy1 · 29 October 2009 at 9:38PM

Hi

Very briefly, our estate agent has drastically reduced the opening hours of his local office, they were 9am to 5pm Mon-Fri, & Sat morning, and are now 10am to 2pm Mon-Fri & Sat morning. This he did in March 2009 and didn't tell us - we only found out 3 weeks ago by accident! He has offices in a couple of other towns but they are nowhere near where we live - we only signed up with him because he had a local office and it was open all day during the week. Needless to say we are not happy at all and have told him that we do not want to remain with him. Even though the hours are not stated in the contract, he doesn't dispute that I was told the hours when we signed up with him. If he had told us in March that he was going to reduce the hours we would've stopped using him then and switched to another agent. To add insult to injury we placed an ad in the paper in April - had we known we would not have done so and not incurred the additional expense. We've also lost the 'summer' which is traditionally the best time to sell so are totally fed up to say the least.

We believe he is in breach of the contract with us due to his actions and he had a duty of care to tell us, as his clients, of anything that could affect the possible sale of our property, but he chose not to do so and was willingly misleading us and disadvantaging us as we were not getting the service we were led to believe we were. Even his wife and assistant (who work in the office) have said we should have been told! I can back-up everything I put in my letter, to the extent of him still not telling his clients of his reduced hours, and any potential new clients too, but he obviously doesn't believe that and has only just stopped short of actually calling me a liar.

Now to the nub of the problem. Due to his actions we do not feel that he has the right to expect the fees to be paid in full for his 'service', I've written to him to inform him that we are not continuing with him and have been quite honest about how disappointed we are, being polite of course. I've now received back what can only be described as a very disdainful and condescending letter, with no apology at all for not letting us know, it is obvious that he thinks it is okay to treat his clients in this way.

I am going to write back to let him know that we do not agree that he should be paid his full fee (£247), however, I suspect that he will respond in the same vein as before so I'm also going to ask him for details of the bodies he is a member of so that I can make a formal representation to them to adjudicate. What I would like to know though is, what do I do about the invoice? He's stipulated that he expects it to be paid by 5 November but whilst we are in 'dispute' should I do this or should I insist on his having to wait until it is dealt with by the body he is a member of?

I don't want to cause any problems for us with the official bodies by not paying, but obviously if we do pay he can just tell us to 'go away' or words to that effect!

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Chris

Fire_Fox · 29 October 2009 at 9:45PM

Why is there a fee of £247, has the estate agent sold the house?

clockworks_2 · 29 October 2009 at 11:04PM

Fire_Fox wrote: »

Why is there a fee of £247, has the estate agent sold the house?

exactly what i was thinking

Grovester_2 · 29 October 2009 at 11:20PM

So you didn't notice your agent had cut his hours 7 months ago and now it's a problem, it wasn't a problem last month when you didn't know so what's changed this month, simply the fact you know?

Did you not find it strange you could contact your agent after 2pm?

The original hours are not exactly great are they, at the very least you'd expect an agent to open all day Saturday!

chodges84 · 29 October 2009 at 11:20PM

If he's sold your house and that is your fee, I would be celebrating at how cheap it is.

If he hasn't sold the house then there should be no fee to pay unless something was stipulated in the contract.

googler · 30 October 2009 at 12:40AM

You ask for advice; my advice to you is to move on. If the £247 invoiced by the agent is for things like supply of sale boards, printing of schedules, etc - the things you can't dispute the agent HAS done - then just pay it and find another agent.

Very briefly, our estate agent has drastically reduced the opening hours of his local office, they were 9am to 5pm Mon-Fri, & Sat morning, and are now 10am to 2pm Mon-Fri & Sat morning. This he did in March 2009 and didn't tell us - we only found out 3 weeks ago by accident! He has offices in a couple of other towns but they are nowhere near where we live - we only signed up with him because he had a local office and it was open all day during the week.

Have you made any enquiry as to when the majority of walk-ins occur at your agent? If nothing happens between 9-10, and after 2pm, and he gets a lot of lunchtime visitors (office workers?) then this would seem a sensible move.

We've also lost the 'summer' which is traditionally the best time to sell so are totally fed up to say the least.

Exaggeration in the extreme. You haven't 'lost' anything. While your agent is closed, I assume your property is still on display in their window, and passers-by can see it. I assume whatever web presence the agent has doesn't shut down when the office closes.

... so I'm also going to ask him for details of the bodies he is a member of so that I can make a formal representation to them to adjudicate. What I would like to know though is, what do I do about the invoice? He's stipulated that he expects it to be paid by 5 November but whilst we are in 'dispute' should I do this or should I insist on his having to wait until it is dealt with by the body he is a member of?

You may find the 'official bodies' won't be inclined to 'adjudicate' until you've gone through any complaints process that the agent has in place. Look at the Property Ombudsman website. They insist on this.

squaredoggy1 · 30 October 2009 at 6:33PM

Thanks to those who are being helpful. As a new member, I asked for advice, not criticism, I could have bored you with the whole sorry saga, but I chose not to.

To answer some of the 'criticisms' - the property was NOT on display in his window all the time so it wasn't possible for visitors outside of his hours of work to see it other than to do a web search so we have 'lost' the summer period when we could have been marketing it with another agent who was there and accessible. To add insult to injury, instead he had adverts for 'antiquities' in the window as he's sub-let the office and puts a sandwich board out to advertise both businesses - not professional looking.

As our property is unusual, a big part of the reason we went with the agent was because of they way they market - their local staff are well versed in the properties they sell to be able to add more 'meat' than can be incorporated into the brochures etc, visiting the properties to familiarise themselves fully with them. If the local staff are not accessible how is this supposed to happen? He hasn't disputed this.

As for times when people visit - another agent just across the street has been innundated with visitors and callers whilst our agent has been on reduced hours, asking when they can get hold of him. We simply cannot quantify how much of an effect his lack of availability has had on the 'non-sale' of our property but it can't have helped.

I know about having to follow the complaints procedure, hence why I'm going through the saga of writing to him and am asking him for his final view on the matter.

The fees I'm referring to are the withdrawal fees. We've incurred extra costs, part of which is because they asked us to advertise in the local paper in April, which we agreed to - if he'd told us they were on reduced hours we would have pulled out from them then and moved to another agent, and not incurred these extra costs with him.

He is still not telling his current clients or potential clients about his reduced hours so it is not just us who are being misled.

To anyone who can help, this is the specific thing I would appreciate info on:

squaredoggy1 wrote: »

What I would like to know though is, what do I do about the invoice? He's stipulated that he expects it to be paid by 5 November but whilst we are in 'dispute' should I do this or should I insist on his having to wait until it is dealt with by the body he is a member of?

I don't want to cause any problems for us with the official bodies by not paying, but obviously if we do pay he can just tell us to 'go away' or words to that effect!

new_home_owner_3 · 30 October 2009 at 6:53PM

We had the same issue with our estate agent but what you will find if someone likes your house and sees it on rightmove, they will either leave a message to view, or will persist until they get through to make a viewing, maybe you are asking too much for the property, try another agent, but i suspect you will propbably have the same results.

squaredoggy1 · 30 October 2009 at 9:13PM

We are going to go with another agent, that's a given.

A question for those who have been a bit harsh - how would you feel in our position? Over the summer the house prices have fallen, we have been misled by our agents, costing us time and money, they didn't bother to tell us, they still think they have, and are, doing nothing wrong and are actually very condescending in the process. A colleague at work was going to place her property for sale with them, she couldn't get hold of them to instruct them as her agents so went with another company (it was just after this that I found out accidentally why she couldn't reach them), due to this they have lost a commission as she already had someone who had viewed the property and then subsequently went through her agents and is buying it.

Putting aside any feelings on the matter, they had a duty to tell us as their clients of anything that could affect the possible sale of our property, and I'd say reducing their opening hours is quite an important thing, wouldn't you? So doesn't this make them in breach of their obligations to us ... weren't they realistally obliged to tell us?

I had hoped that estate agents were more 'trustworthy' nowadays, but this whole situation really doesn't give me any hope at all that they are.

Milliewilly · 30 October 2009 at 9:23PM

I agree with you.

I would not choose an agent who doesn't open standard 'office hours' as some people still like to look in the paper, go to the EA etc. They should halve their fee as they can only put half the hours in now.

DVardysShadow · 30 October 2009 at 9:31PM

Milliewilly wrote: »

... They should halve their fee as they can only put half the hours in now.

And they need only sell half of the house?

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Estate Agents - advice please

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