Estate agent

[Mylifestartstoday]

We sold our house via an agent. Their service offered sales progression until exchange/completion, of which they did nothing. I wrote mid November about my disappointment at their service, no response. They were in contact with my buyer every day apparently, but never contacted me. They closed down for holiday the day prior to exchange, and didn’t tell me. I contacted them via email, which bounced back stating they were closed but to message xxx number. I did this, and in return got an abusive message from the agents boyfriend stating they were unwell and I was overstepping by messaging that number.....the number I’d been told to message. They also replied with information on my sale that I class as confidential, and the boyfriend has no link to the business.
The day of completion came and I had no phone call about key exchange. They had arranged with my buyer to just hand over the key they had for viewings, this resulted in my buyers turning up while we were just finishing up. My buyers are unpleasant and immediately kicked off. They did many things (taking my child’s phone away while they were talking to their dad being one), and throwing the last of my belongings outside being another. This could and should have been avoided if the agent had contacted me to discuss key handover. Because they only had the key for viewings the buyers then tried to make a claim for other keys, saying they hadn’t received any. Again, this could have been avoided had the agent discussed key handover (I left the keys in the property, didn’t hand them over as they were abusive).
It’s now time to pay the estate agent bill, and while I accept the found a buyer, they haven’t fully done their job, which caused immense hassle for me.
I’ve lodged a formal complaint, and intend to take it to the property ombudsman when it fails (as it will because she owns the agents and is investigating herself).
Am I legally bound to pay the full bill? I have offered to discuss, but they refuse. They’ve now contacted my ex as his name was on the house, but they were aware (confidential disclosure from me) that the reason for house sale was acrimonious divorce so they’re using that to go around me for payment.

Do I legally have to pay in full, and then go through the complaints procedure, or am I allowed to pay a (good) proportion of the fee commensurate with their service.
It’s not about the money, I have the money set by to pay. And whatever I legally have to do I will do, but they have less incentive to bother with a complaint if I just hand the whole lot over.
I’ve come out of a financially abusive marriage and I’m not sure if that is clouding my judgement with regard to paying (I’m determined no one else will ever ‘get one over on me’ again).

Being honest, I'm not sure what you expected from the estate agent.

They acted on your behalf to make sure the buyer kept on track. They would only need to contact you if there was a problem. Once you've agreed the sale your main dealings are with your solicitor in my experience.

You talk about them contacting you to discuss key handover but there is nothing to discuss. The contract you signed for the sale would have specified the time of completion. Your solicitor should have made sure you were aware of the time of completion. By that time you were required to be out of the house and should have handed the keys to the estate agent. Once completion time arrived your estate agent was entitled to hand the keys to your buyers provided your solicitor confirmed that they had paid the balance. You can't agree some other time for key handover with your estate agent. If you did, you would be in breach of contract. If you weren't out of the house by completion time that is your problem, not the estate agent's, and means your buyer may have a claim against you. Your estate agent is only at fault if they handed over the keys early. Did they hand over the keys before the agreed time of completion? If not, I'm struggling to see what they did wrong.

Whilst I don't condone their behaviour, I am not surprised your buyers were unhappy if they arrived at the house after completion time and found that you had not yet vacated the property. Once completion happened it was their house and, unless you had agreed otherwise with them, you had no right to be there.

There were lots of issues that the agent should have contacted me about, instead they gave my number to the buyers and I was inundated with messages from them, to the point where I was getting 5/6 messages and 1/2 phone calls a day from the buyers. I didn’t give permission for my number to be given, and I asked the agent to step in a number of times and they didn’t. Eventually I blocked the buyers, asked the agents to speak to them, instead of speaking to them and asking them to go through solicitors all they did was then give out my ex’s number (although he did give his permission, whereas I hadn’t).
I hadn’t had a call from the solicitor at the point the buyers turned up on the day, the key handover to my buyers was a complete surprise from my point of view and while I knew it was imminent, I didn’t know it had happened. I’ve never moved house without the estate agent contacting me about keys, maybe I’ve been very lucky in the past and had good agents.

The agent sold the services to me as having a dedicated sales progressor who would deal with everything, would keep me informed at every stage. I never heard from them, I had to hear from the buyers that they had issues, and wanted to renegotiate the price, the agent said negotiations wasn’t part of their job description. From October onwards I had no contact from the agent other than the message from their spouse/partner who has no connection to the business.
I should have checked online reviews as a lot appear to have had similar issues.
Thanks for taking the time to reply

The estate agent should certainly have dealt with the buyers' request to renegotiate the price and shouldn't have given your contact details to the buyer without your permission. On that basis you may be justified in holding back some of the payment.

They sound very sloppy around data - passing on your number without permission. But the key release is usually done once the solicitors have confirmed the money has moved. Once completion has happened you should be out of the house.