Can someone please help with this as my dh is going to go nuts over the weekend without some sort of answer. Trawling the web is confusing him and I've not got time.
He is selling a flat in England. He signed a single agency agreement with Agent A. They were rotten, photos of the flat showing unmade bed, dirty dishes in the sink etc. No effort was made to contact dh to get him to ask the tenant to have a bit of a clean. I saw the pictures and told dh to tell the agent to take them down and re-do them.
Agent A put very little effort into marketing the flat for what dh felt was a low price but left them to it. After 3months there was no offer.
Eight weeks ago Agent A comes up with a client who makes an offer which dh verbally accepts. Client A then drags his feet with paperwork and dh has not yet signed anything or exchanged contracts.
Two weeks ago Agent B contacted dh. They tell dh that they can get considerably more for the flat than Agent A. Dh says ok, try, forgetting exclusive contract with Agent A. Also he didn't think they could get what they said they could and wanted them to stop calling him. He gave in to pester power! Agent B comes up with an offer several 10's of thousands higher than Agent A two days ago. Client B gets paperwork to lawyer yesterday and is very keen to proceed.
Dh has now broken the bad news to Agent A and Client A.
Agent A is now threatening for his fees. I think fair enough although not keen to pay it. Client A is also wanting his legal fees paid as he was proceeding "in good faith".
As there is no contract with Client A I think he can go whistle, that's the English legal system. Am I correct?
As for Agent A, I don't want to pay as they were hopeless (as was dh) but assume we will have to as there is a contract. Can we make an offer for part of the fees?
TBH even if we have to pay Agent A in full we will still be much better off with the offer from Client B.
Sorry this is so long but didn't want to drip feed. Any help or advice gratefully received.