My sister has just sold our late Mother's house. It has been on the market for nearly 2 years & we had to keep dropping the price. It finally sold last week & we were surprised that the estate agent's took their 1.25% commission from the original marketed price rather than the final sale price. We had to drop the price by 40k to finally get a sale. As my sister lives near the house she organised the sale & missed the small print. As she did all the work I don't blame her at all. However, I want to know if this is standard practice? If so, surely it's in estate agent's interests to give an over-inflated starting price to ensure that they get more money.