We have had our house on the market with a local estate agent since January. We have in the interim secured a private sale, not through another agent, completely privately. This came about as we wanted to buy her house, put a note through her door (expecting nothing to come of it) and she called back, and by coincidence said she needed to downsize and wondered if we would be interested in a swap.
She has never looked at our house on rightmove, never spoke to the estate agent, was not even looking to move house (very immediate divorce so only just getting round to thinking about sorting the house situation out), and we don't have a board up.
The estate agent says he is still due his fee.
The contracts says we have to pay if contracts are exchanged:
- with a purchaser introduced by the agent
- with a purchaser who has been in negotiations with the agent
- with a purchaser introduced by another agent (it's a sole agency agreement)
Is this worth us fighting over or should we just pay up? I feel that as they had no involvement at all, and due to the unusual way the sale came about (which can to some extent be backed up by computer files etc.), they are not due anything except the 'withdrawal fee'.
Anyone advise?
Dx