Pulling out of sale Question

Hi all,

I have a house up for sale via an auctioneer. A person put in an offer and I agreed to the price. The contract has been sent over to my solicitor which I am due to sign this week.

I have since decided that I don't want to sell the house. My reasons are varied.


I did sign a contract with the auctioneer online regarding his fees etc., - but he didn't send me a copy so I can't read through it before the phone call this week. I remember that I would be liable to pay €600 if I withdraw the house from the market to compensate him for the advertising ect.

Would it be likely that I would be liable to pay him the sale fee even though the sale is not now going to go through - as I did agree to the offer and I am pulling out at a late stage - agreed fee was 2.5%.

Any opinions would be most welcome....

Thanks

If it's any help, the standard PRSA engagement letter is here, and should have been used:


Apart from upfront marketing costs, the fee should only become due once contract is executed.

That's a very high fee unless it's a low value property. 1.5% is very much the norm.

But aside from this you probably can change your mind with just the marketing costs applied

Really hate stories like this. You had plenty of time to decide to drop out before buyers sent over signed contracts to you. In the meantime, the buyer has probably paid for a bank valuation, arranged for a loan offer, paid for a survey and engaged a solicitor. They might well have made decisions on their current living arrangements.

Everyone ie entitled to pull out but if you have numerous reasons to pull out like you claim, you should probably never have started the process and you certainly shouldn't have allowed it to get to this point. You wasted the estate agents time and you cost someone else a lot of money.

Hate people who make judgements without knowing the full story.

Don't need the full story. He said it himself. You don't get 'varied reasons' to pull out of a sale at that stage. You might have 1 very big reason but varied reasons don't appear overnight. He wasted people's time and money.
There should be financial penalties for both buyers and sellers for pulling out once financial expense begins to be incurred after going sale agreed.