Estate Agent fees if Agreed Sale falls through

Hi all,

I appear to be in an unfortunate position where an apartment I'm selling will fall-through (currently at Sale Agreed but purchasers solicitor is delaying [OMC issues] and the house I'm intending to buy is now likely to return my deposit).

What is the norm in terms of estate agent fees in this situation - am I liable for the full sale percentage or nothing at all? He has been good to me but I'd like to know the standard position before we chat about costs.

Thanks all.

What are the "OMC issues"? The purchaser's solicitor is doing the right thing by the purchaser if you have any issues with your OMC. As the current owner can you not resolve them to expedite the sale?

The development the aparment is in has a number of phases and one of those has some outstanding works (i.e. snag list) that need to be done and there are on-going negotiations between the OMC and the developer (rather helpfully in receivership...) over who does these. The receiver will cover the big items with the OMC covering smaller items.

My apartment is fine with no snag list (and no issues were identified in the surveyors report), thanfully. However the purchaser's solicitor is worried that the overall OMC may be hit with a levy to cover these snag list items.

I've actually done laods of work on the issue and even got the snag list off the OMC and sent this to the purchasers solicitor. However other units have been successfully sold recently so this issue is not (or should not be) a 'show-stopper'.

Despite all this, I still think it'll fall-through; and this leads me to my query of estate agent fees due from me.

I would have thought no sale no fee.
If you keep it on the market then the EA will get his fee eventually.

You will have already paid for advertising presumably.

I have been in a position somewhat similar to yours. Some solicitors acting for purchasers are more picky than others - as evidenced by the fact that other sales have gone through with the same OMC issues: clearly the solicitors in those transactions did not see the issues as fundamantal.

My EA never suggested seeking a fee on the aborted sale; we ploughed on, found another purchaser, and the EA got his fee from that.

Thanks all.