Offer received via Estate Agents we're no longer with...

[AllTheGoodOnesAreTaken]

We recently changed Estate Agents but a couple who viewed through the previous estate agents have just made an offer. What are the legal implications of this, if any?

You have to pay the fees to the original 'introducer' Do you still have teh terms of the original agreement anywhere?

How did you find out about it? When I bought our house last year, it was on sale with two different agents. The woman selling asked us to make an offer through x rather than y.

We gave old estate agents our notice and during our notice period this couple came to see the house. They never made an offer though and we terminated with estate agents and started immediately with new estate agents. Two weeks later we get a phonecall from old estate agents saying there's an offer. We have no way of contacting the potential buyers to ask them to go through new estate agents.

You can't ask them to go through the new agent. The first agent found the buyer and you have to pay them the fee.

It's worth checking your contract with both estate agencies to see whether you have to pay the commission to the agency that introduced the buyers or, worst case scenario, to the agent that introduced them and to the agent with whom it was being marketed when that offer was made which could mean paying the second EA as well.

Once you have found that out, try and see how strong this offer is - it seems odd that the couple didn't ask for a second viewing or do anything for two weeks. Asking them to go through the new estate agency would make no difference as the original agency was the one that first showed them the property (there has been a lot of court cases hinging on this...).

Be very careful of this - there may be no offer on the table at all. An agent tried this on with us before and it's a way of sneakily reinstating the contract he previously had with you.
When agents don't have many properties on their books, they scout around looking for new properties they think may drum up business - they get paid by vendors, so having more property for sale makes them look 'better' so they attract even more vendors and potentially earn even more commission. Attracting buyers is only a necessary evil for agents.
Your initial contract with the first agent will probably say that you must pay commission for any buyer (introduced during the period of sole agency) who then proceeds to full completion.
If the first agent says they have an offer (from the viewer they introduced) send them an email asking them to put the details of the offer in writing, including name of buyer, whether they need a mortgage and so on (every agent should do this anyway with any offer). If they won't do this, the 'buyer/offer' probably doesn't exist.
When you get this information, and if you believe it is genuine, write back saying you will deal with them with regard to this buyer and this offer ONLY - ie you are not going to entertain any other viewers from them - you do not ahve any agreement with them except in relation to this buyer.
Otherwise, you may find that the first agent considers you have given them carte blanche re-market your house (this may be what they are trying to get you to do - I would suspect the buyer doesn't exist and that when the 'offer' inevitably falls through, they start sending you more potential buyers and before you know it you have entered into a formal agreement and both agents are then entitled to look for higher multi-agency commission.

I've had agents call me out of the blue saying they have someone who will make an offer on my property and they will send them round but first I have to sign an agreement.... it's all underhand estate agency trickery.

By the way, it's worth bearing in mind that Foxtons lost a huge case in the High Court in similar circumstance to yours where a judge ruled that simply sending a viewer round to look at a house didn't constitute 'introducing a buyer' so the vendor only had to pay the new agency in that case.

Greentown, thank you for your reply (and everybody elses of course!). I does sound like the kind of thing they would do; they even texted us yesterday saying tht the couple really wanted an answer asap and it just didn't ring true.

Is it a good offer? How desperate are you to move?

Offer is okay, could be much much better, and we're not desperate to move, we don't even have a place to put an offer in!!

it is hard to know. If you say it isn't enough and they offer more than you will have to go with it. Maybe say to the agents that if this sale proceeds to completion all well and good but if it falls through the property will not be on their books again just for these people.So annoying though.