Property on market but having doubts - Advice please!

[emoo777]

We have had our house advertised for three weeks, and had viewings for one week. No offers yet but a second viewing on Saturday. The problem we have is that we were promised some money by my mother, but now my father has turned around and said no to it. This money was going to enable us to take a good step up the ladder, and move to an area with better schools (dd starts next year). We are struggling to find any property worth moving for. What happens if we pull out of selling now? I think our contract says something about estate agents maybe reclaiming costs. Anyone had any experience of pulling out? I really don't want to accept an offer and let someone down. That said I live in hope of our dream home suddenly appearing on the market...

If you are pulling out now, but might want to put it back on the market in a few months time then the estate agent won't charge you as it won't make you feel to kindly towards them. Of course if you don't actually put in on I. A few months they're not going to chase you.

Yes interesting point. We will move at some point so we could go back to them when we do. They are one of two local firms and they do trade very much off reputation, and they know we are well connected locally as we recommended them to a friend, who is now selling with them. Our house looks so lovely now we have got it ready and I find I am resenting viewings and dreading getting offers. It's all got a bit silly really : (

I have nver heard of an agent 'recouping costs' if you choose to withdraw your house from the market, but why don't you just check your contract? Even if it does say that you don't have to accept any offer (even if it's for the asking price) if you don't want to. Just leave on it on with them for the required length of time to avoid any payments and then tell them you've taken it off the market.

If you've set your heart on moving though, I'll be amazed if you can bring yourself to turn a decent offer down.

Incidentally, your mother should never have agreed to give you money without agreeing the exact terms with your father first.

Are you happy for your dd to attend school where you are locally? I seriously doubt an estate agent would charge. What does your contract state?

I very much doubt you will incur any charges at all but if you were going to they would need to be outlined in your contract with the agent.

All my contract states is that if we were to decide not to sell, we may be required to pay for services from estate agent.

I would contact the EA, tell them there has been an unexpected financial hitch and you can't sell the house as soon as you hoped. Say you hope to get back on track with selling through them in the not too distant future and ask if there will be any charge. If they say yes you could say that would put you off using them when you are ready.

Thanks for everyone's help. I spoke to EA and they were quite casual about it and are not charging us anything. I guess we are not the first people to do this. I do feel a bit foolish for making such a big decision and telling all of our local friends, only to undo it. The problem was that we didn't know where we live is so ideal until we looked around. I guess we should count ourselves lucky!

If we pull out we are only liable for cost of HIP report -£90.