Selling our house with an auctioneer but I have found a buyer myself

G

ghi

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Hello all , our house is for sale with an auctioneer and all is going well meaning we had viewings and an offer is imminent.
However a friend of ours decided to come back to Ireland and is very interested in buying our home.

How does it work in this situation with regard to the auctioneer's fee if we sell it to our friend ? I have no issues paying the fee if the auctioneer found the buyer but this is not the case.

Thank you
 
You gave the house to the auctioneer to sell. You've probably signed a Contract.

You did not agree with the auctioneer that you would also be looking for buyers yourself and that they would only get paid if they found the buyer.

Your friend can go and deal with the auctioneer.

mf
 
mf1 said:
You gave the house to the auctioneer to sell. You've probably signed a Contract.

You did not agree with the auctioneer that you would also be looking for buyers yourself and that they would only get paid if they found the buyer.

Your friend can go and deal with the auctioneer.

mf
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I think you are entitled to cancel the contract with the EA and deal directly with your friend. As long as your friend heard about the house from you and not the EA. You will have to pay any outlays (advertising mainly) which should have been agreed upfront. We had an EA earlier this year, cancelled the contract due to inactivity and a few weeks later advertised on Daft and sold our house saving us EA fees in the process.
 
thanks both for your replies. As i said we are not trying to avoid paying the fee , but cant see why we should pay if we found the buyer ourselves. Yes advertising were paid upfront.
 
Check what your letter of engagement with the auctioneer said - if it said (as used to be standard anyway) "agent with sole selling rights" then you do not have the right to avoid him. "Sole selling agent" would mean you cannot employ a separate agent but nothing to preclude you selling it yourself.

If the friend heard about the house from an advert that the auctioneer put online, or heard about it from someone (eg another friend or relative) who saw it online or in the newspaper then the auctioneer would argue that he did indeed introduce the buyer.

I would suggest talking to the auctioneer and see if you can come to an arrangement that neither of you are too unhappy with.
 
ghi said:
Hello all , our house is for sale with an auctioneer and all is going well meaning we had viewings and an offer is imminent.
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Whatever about the legal situation, it seems that the auctioneer has earned his fee.

If nothing else, he has established the market price of the house.

If you sell it to your friend, you should pay the auctioneer the fee he would have got.



Brendan
 
Maybe the rules have changed but when I was selling my last house in 2010, I paid a fee up front with agreed fee's if they sold the house. I put the house with a second EA (again paid initial fee with agreement on fee's if the house was sold) after a few months of inactivity which appeared to spur the first EA into doing a bit more to sell/promote the house. The initial EA managed to sell the house after 4 months and was paid their fee's, the second EA got nowt.
 
I'm not condoning this as moral or ethical, but why don't you advise your auctioneer that you have changed your mind and not selling. Then sell privately to your friend. If you have paid upfront what the auctioneer has asked for already, then you can walk away.
 
The house is still with the auctioneer, we just had friends looking for a house and we didn't find normal to pay the auctioneer's fee if we found the buyer ourselves. We paid the auctioneer for the advertising upfront. but the issue is no more , friends cant afford the house so this is it. Thanks for the input.
 
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