Querying estate agents fees

victoriavictorious · 26 May 2018 at 6:23PM

If you didn't agree to the commission and terms of the contract, you shouldn't have signed up to them.
You can't just pay any old amount you fancy retrospectively - contracts don't work like that. They will (rightly imo) take you to the cleaners if you try to renege on this.
You could have signed up to one of the many online agents for under a grand, instead of expecting a West End level of service for an East End price,

ValiantSon · 26 May 2018 at 8:04PM

rosamundie wrote: »

Of course it is important that estate agents find out some information about someone who applies to visit your house with a view to buying it. That's their job - otherwise, why not just stick a `for sale' ad in the local paper and leave your door open for anyone who might like a view.
This is why people use a high street agent rather than an online one.
Are you people for real?!

Oh, the irony.

googler · 27 May 2018 at 10:16AM

mikec100 wrote: »

One thing everyone can agree on in this forum is that estate agents get Money for nothing and its the house that sells itself.

Don't presume to speak for everyone on the forum

Jimmy_Neutron · 27 May 2018 at 11:17AM

haras_nosirrah · 27 May 2018 at 11:35AM

I am confused how you can say that the estate agent did no work in the job of getting the case through to completion when you didn't tell them the sale wasn't going through and therefore they didn't have the opportunity to do so.

Had you told them they may have done a wonderful job and got you more money through negotiations.

You can't complain they didn't work hard enough for the commission when you didn't give them an opportunity to do their job.

Also they told you their mortgage broker had confirmed they could get a mortgage. Telling you huge amounts of info about your buyer may have got them in hot water with data protection act if the buyer had complained

haras_nosirrah · 27 May 2018 at 11:40AM

rosamundie wrote: »

In a nutshell: I put my house on the market, the agent found a buyer and I accepted his offer but very soon I pulled out. A month later the buyer tracked me down on FB and persuaded me to accept his offer.
We have just exchanged and the agent (who we both agreed not to inform as they were pretty hopeless and we were doing a good job of negotiating between ourselves) have just found out and want their 30k commission.

so your reason for not telling the agent was because they were hopeless (even though they had found a proceedable buyer very quickly and you were the one who pulled out). The £30k saving for you was just incidental.

I hope you didn't knock some money off the price for the buyer in expectation of not paying the estate agent as that would now have cost you dear.

If that is a hopeless estate agent what is a good one?

lildoonbuggy · 27 May 2018 at 12:45PM

Given you're contesting a not so tiny sum of £30k, why not contact a specialist lawyer and see what your chances are of negotiating a lower settlement? Before then, I would not be engaging with them at all. Don't respond to their letter, don't acknowledge receipt, get legal advice and if you want to take a gamble in court/with negotiations let them take care of it. If not, put up the money as originally agreed. At the end of the day, both sides have a lot at stake so this really shouldn't be settled based on anonymous advice dispensed on forums.

ValiantSon · 27 May 2018 at 2:50PM

lildoonbuggy wrote: »

Given you're contesting a not so tiny sum of £30k, why not contact a specialist lawyer and see what your chances are of negotiating a lower settlement? Before then, I would not be engaging with them at all. Don't respond to their letter, don't acknowledge receipt, get legal advice and if you want to take a gamble in court/with negotiations let them take care of it. If not, put up the money as originally agreed. At the end of the day, both sides have a lot at stake so this really shouldn't be settled based on anonymous advice dispensed on forums.

That is truly terrible advice! The OP entered into a contract, the terms of which were clear and in line with standard industry practice. That contract requires them to pay 1.5% of the sale price for introducing the buyer. There is no grey area here, and any decent solicitor would take one look at it and tell them to pay. If they are lucky the solicitor will not charge them for their time, but they may do, and so the OP would end up paying the £30,000 plus a solicitor's bill.

AnotherJoe · 27 May 2018 at 3:52PM

davidmcn wrote: »

I have booked viewings today with four agents and none of them showed any interest in my occupation.

Perhaps they noticed the pottery dust on your shoes, the blisters from burns on your fingers and the wedgewoord logo'd t shirt and deduced you were a saggermakers bottom knocker ?

Red-Squirrel_2 · 27 May 2018 at 3:55PM

robatwork wrote: »

I think Estate Agents are almost all oleaginous, mini driving, shiny suit wearing, qualificationless, money hungry shysters of the first degree. They lie to your face and most can't even take a decent picture or string a coherent sentence together. I've made my feelings plain on this forum for years based on my personal experience. In fact for any job ending in "Agent" I could say the same thing.

Secret agent?

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Querying estate agents fees

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