Sacked Estate Agent looking for fee

bacchus said:
Could not agree more with Casca.
Reading between the line, greed is the root cause of the problem, not the EA.
Trading _up has accepted a bid, and should honour his word. Full stop.
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No, there's no "full stop". I think trading_up probably did make a mistake in accepting that bid, but he or she is under no obligation to go with that buyer, particularly as he or she only changed their mind a day later (not stringing the purchaser along).

If you read the other thread, you'll see that the Estate Agent was definitely at fault. The Estate Agent refused to let other people even view the house or make bids, without being instructed by the vendor to do so. The Estate Agent's responsibility is to get the best possible price for the house, not to get the fastest sale (unless the seller tells them to). It looks very much like the EA was trying to get the house for a particular person on the cheap, and the fact that no adequate explanation for their actions was forthcoming from the Agency is very suspicious. I find it hard to see how anyone could possibly defend them.
 
casca said:
... it seems to me that you made some errors. One, you accepted an offer instead of telling the agent that unless a better one turns up after ? days/weeks, you would accept it ...
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I will definitely put my hand up to that one! I suppose I was a bit panicked given that I knew there definitely wouldn't be any more bids forthcoming as any new enquiries were being turned away. I should have said I wanted to wait as cacca has suggested and insisted that the EA arrange more viewings if required. However, after sleeping on it for a night, I called the estate agent and pulled out of the sale. I was definitely at fault in accepting the original bid but I was a bit panicked in a whole new situation to me.
 
Trading_Up to answer your original question and clarify some of the issues you have raised:

If you sell your house to the original proposed purchaser introduced to you by the first Estate Agent will you be liable for Estate Agent's fees?
Answer: Yes
Why? By agreeing to sell your house through and estate agent, even by agreeing verbally you accepted to pay any fees associated with the sale of your property. As the "introducer", the estate agent is entitled to receive a fee for allowing you to proceed with the sale of your home, whether still engaged or not.

I'm not sure if you behaved in the most appropriate manner given the circumstances - You felt that your estate agent wasn't taking care of your best interested and you complained to the director of that agency and didn't get satisfaction. I would have then taken my complaint to their governing professional body so as to ensure that you were covered in terms of liability for any fees due.

By terminating your contract with the original Estate Agent & yes you did have a contract - indeed you recognised it by dispensing the EA's marketing expenses - prior to checking what you would be liable for was foolhardy. Going forward, I would make a formal complaint to either the IAVI or SCS or whichever is the governing body of the Estate Agent. I would also initiate a claim in the small claims court to claim back your marketing expenses. It seems to me that your estate agents didn't act with your best interests at heart, and if this is true, then for the estate agent to charge you for marketing was wrong.
 
mo3art said:
I would also initiate a claim in the small claims court to claim back your marketing expenses. It seems to me that your estate agents didn't act with your best interests at heart, and if this is true, then for the estate agent to charge you for marketing was wrong.
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There is not much to claim for the simple reason that trading_up went sale agreed, i.e. he accepted a bid from whoever via EA. Then, he realised he panicked , he agreed to sale to quickly, Fairy Greed arrived on the top of all of that, and he pulls out as he realised he could get more money....
Too easy to blaim the EA afterwards.
 
No sorry, I think I didn't make myself clear.

If the governing professional body rules that the Estate Agency acted unprofessionally, then the OP would be entitled to claim back their marketing costs via the small claims court. As I would see it, if the ruling was in the OP favour, then as the Estate Agency didn't provide the service as agreed/advertised there is no obligation on the OP to pay marketing fees.
 
Thanks for all the advice everybody. I've a feeling my question will turn out to be pretty hypothetical as the original bidders will in all likeability have gone elsewhere by the time my property is back on the market. Thanks again.
 
Witchfinder said:
No, there's no "full stop". I think trading_up probably did make a mistake in accepting that bid, but he or she is under no obligation to go with that buyer, particularly as he or she only changed their mind a day later (not stringing the purchaser along).

If you read the other thread, you'll see that the Estate Agent was definitely at fault. The Estate Agent refused to let other people even view the house or make bids, without being instructed by the vendor to do so.
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Eh, bacchus have you actually read the other thread are you just arguing a point for the sake of it cos it looks that way to me. The OP discovered that the EA had turned away bidders before he went sale agreed - this meant that the EA had witheld information, and in the absence of knowledge of these bids the OP went sale agreed. OP then realised EA was not acting in his best interests (I think anyone who reads both threads objectively would come to this conclusion) and then became one of the few people to have the balls to actually go ahead and fire an EA. He was perfectly entitled to terminate any verbal contract they may have had.

Fair play trading_up for having the courage to fire the EA - maybe he will learn a lesson from this and you will have saved several others from going through a similar situation. The fact the MD of the agency offered no defence of his employee's actions is an admission of blame in my eyes and as a result I'd be very surprised if he sanctioned any legal action, though I'd doubt any action would be successful anyway.

By the way Mo3art - complain to the governing professional body??? This is estate agents we're talking about here.....check the archives here and you'll find plenty more cases where people found the IAVI were more concerned with protecting their members interests than acting on reasonable complaints from customers.
 
Ohpinchy, while I agree with your comment about the archives & the IAVIA/IPAV tending to protect their members historically, I think you need to look at the bigger picture here.
If the OP does feel, and has evidence that their Estate Agent didn't act in their best interests what have they to lose by making a complaint to the professional body, and indeed the Competition Authority should they not get satisfaction at professional body level. Simply stating that according to the older posts on AAM, the professional bodies are not much help to complainants & tend to protect their member's best interests is not very constructive advice. If you are not happy with a service, you complain.
Why don't we all sit on our hands and not complain because various other posters on AAM haven't been happy in the past? Lets wait and see the professional bodies react to public opinions and reaction while we sit on our hands.
Change will only be effected if you complain to the governing body when you do not receive a professional service. Indeed if they are protecting their members' best interests, and the agent has acted improperly then they will take action as they would be giving all other agents a bad name.
 
Not as clear cut as mentioned.

I know of a situation where a couple engaged the services of an auctioneer to sell their house and the house was not sold at the price that the couple wanted. They took the sign down and 2 weeks later sold the house to one of their OWN children YET they had to pay the auctioneer full fees and it was a very expensive house.

Be very careful.
 
There's an interesting program on BBC1 tonight at 9pm - Whistleblower which investigates the tactics that can be used by estate agents to secure a sale....

I know it may not be relevant to this thread and it's based on the U.K. market but it should make interesting viewing.
 
Let's keep this civil please folks.

Any further personal attacks or bickering and I will close the thread.

Thanks.
 
Mo3art - I take your point but if I had any confidence in the IAVI I would recommend complaining to them. But imo, they are a toothless organisation interested in nothing but protecting their members from any criticism. If I think complaining is very likely to be a waste of time I won't bother. In any other industry I'd complain without doubt but I'd be very, very surprised if the IAVI didn't meet a complaint on this issue with 'there's nothing we can do as there is no evidence the EA did any wrong'.

Heard gerry ryan on the radio this morning saying that the forthcoming new 'regulatory body' (which again will be pretty powerless and only able to remove licenses in the most extreme cases) have come out and said 'It is not reasonable to expect EAs to produce accurate AMVs' (or whatever the new guide price is called), and 'It is not realistic to expect EAs to avoid gazumping as they are merely acting on instructions from their vendors'.

Eh, what? If I tell my accountant to cook the books if I ran my own business to make profits look better to attract investors is it acceptable for him to do so? Damn right its not and theres no way an EA is obliged to gazump or produce phantom bids to increase prices.

But, back to the OP's situation: he did not gazump anybody - information was witheld by the EA, and a day later he cancelled the sale agreed, and soon after he fired the EA, which is totally reasonable in my view. Its a very different situation to what meccano had, whereby I'd say both the vendor and EA were in the wrong (had this happend to me and it aint nice), in the OP's case the EA shoulders all the blame.
 
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