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Question about privately selling / buying

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Evenings chaps & chapessess

 

In a nutshell I'm looking for some advice.

 

We recently found a house, advertised on an estate agent's website, called them and booked a viewing.

 

We spoke to the sellers and agreed a price and on the agreement that they wouldn't use the estate agency for the sale. This benefited the sellers & us as they wouldn't have to pay their fees and meant we got the property for £2k less than they wanted - excellent.

 

We've been told today, by the sellers, that they've received notification from the estate agency that *they've* been notified that the house is being sold privately and as they were the ones who did the introduction, than if the house is sold privately than their fees will apply.

 

This has left us in a quandary - the sellers can't afford to sell the property for the price we agreed with them as well as paying the £2k fees, this has a knock-on effect to our costs and will mean that if we still wish to buy the house than we have another £2k to find.

 

Does anyone know if the estate agency WOULD be notified of such a sale, if so who would notify them? Are we just being shafted by the seller? Maybe he's realised he needs another £2k for his new property or could the estate agents have actually been told maybe by the solicitors?

 

Any help of advice is welcome!

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Much as I dislike EAs, it seem rather underhanded to try and do the deal privately after they have done the work.

 

As it is - try talking to the respective solicitors on each side of the deal and ask them directly. Are either solicitor recommended to you/the vendor by the EA in the first place? If so I'd expect a degree of communication between them.

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If it's in the agents contract with the seller that they get paid if the house is sold within a certain period of time regardless of where the buyer comes from, then the agent will claim their fees off the vendor. Which is fair if that's what the seller agreed to.

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The estate agent introduced you and hence they are entitled to their fees

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The estate agent introduced you and hence they are entitled to their fees

Even if EA didn't, its fees might be payable. Post #3 is right; that's the effect of EA reserving fees in the Agency Agreement.

BUT V might have a right to challenge it under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999.

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If you could get away with selling your house "privately" while under a contract with the estate agent everyone would do it and there would not be any estate agents.

However, you may want to call the seller's bluff on upping the agreed price - is it worth £2k to the seller not to have to put the house back on the market and start again? Did you agree a price £2k less than the asking price or £2k less than what they expected to get? If the former, stick it out because houses rarely sell for the asking price. Look on rightmove.co.uk and go to the Tab that says "House Prices" and select "Sold House Prices". See what people have actually paid, and if what you are offering is in line with recent sold prices for similar houses in the immediate neighbourhood, show it to the sellers and negotiate. You may even find you offered too much!

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wrong thread oops

Edited by Arrr Sez I

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Stick it out. They only have 1 house to sell and you can buy 1 of many available...

 

And to echo the above comments, we all (yes all) dislike EAs, I'm not even sure they like themselves, but it's a bit dodge for the vendor to 'choose' not to involve them after they've done all the 'hard' work.

Edited by jasd75

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Stick it out. They only have 1 house to sell and you can buy 1 of many available...

 

And to echo the above comments, we all (yes all) dislike EAs, I'm not even sure they like themselves, but it's a bit dodge for the vendor to 'choose' not to involve them after they've done all the 'hard' work.

Yes and yes- agreed!

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You'll need to get the vendors to check their contract with the EA like JS says. We were going through a similar thing, and I had people wanting to view and make offers without our EA, but they were still due the fees as they were the 'sole sellers' or something like that.

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Stick it out. They only have 1 house to sell and you can buy 1 of many available...

 

And to echo the above comments, we all (yes all) dislike EAs, I'm not even sure they like themselves, but it's a bit dodge for the vendor to 'choose' not to involve them after they've done all the 'hard' work.

 

Going on some of my friends experience of estate agents thats quite an assumption the EA actually did much to help in the way of work!

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