offered on house. now seller has changed agent...

[Pangomonium]

Hello

New mum who's long time lurker finally posting something!

We've been hoping we could buy for years but only recently came into some money for a deposit to enable us to actually consider becoming FTBs. The area we are in doesn't seem to have much on the market at our end at the moment so when something suitable came up in our budget we jumped in with a good offer.

The agent just got back to us after the weekend to say that the vendor has decided to sell through someone else but that if we wanted to approach the new agent we'd still have to offer via the old agent as they introduced us to the property?!

I can't find anything about how this affects our chances as buyers and what we can /should do in the circumstances.

Does anyone have any advice please?

Cheers

I think they're trying it on. Do you have any contract with them? The seller is generally responsible for paying the agent's commission, not the buyer.

I don't see any reason why you should not go direct to the new agency.

HOWEVER, depending on the seller's contract with the agencies, if you buy the property they may have to pay commission twice - once to each agent. That's not your problem, but it may make you a less attractive buyer.

It's not for you to worry about. The new agent will proceed the sale, but the old agent will get a proportionate cut of the commission. There will not be double commission - they will share the 1% or whatever.

Maybe the original estate agents contract ended the day after you saw the property.

There could still be a tie in financially though

Thanks everyone for the swift and helpful replies

Oinkballoon, you have hit the nail on the head that is EXACTLY what I'm worried about we were thinking of putting a note through the door introducing ourselves directly to the vendor and asking them to keep us informed but now wondering if we should just keep our mouths shut, view with their new agent when it comes back on and not mention our previous contact with the old agent. But I don't want to be underhand.

Sigh

This is very common and nothing to worry about.
When the seller changed from Agent A to Agent B, Agent A will have given Agent B, and the seller, a list of people who viewed the property through them and if anyone on the list offers on the property they will expect some of the fee. The seller will pay the fee, and be aware of this. You are viewed as agent A's buyer because they introduced you to the property.
Even if you introduce yourself directly the seller will be liable for commission under the terms of the contract they have signed.

Thanks TCFB, that's a really helpful explanation and has made us feel much better informed

we weren't looking at bypassing the agent by contacting vendor directly, just hoping to make sure they're aware of our Interest and hopefully let them know we're other human beings just looking for a home, not faceless monsters trying to squeeze a bargain at their expense!

They switched agents as the high number of viewings and our asking price offer convinced them the agent had undervalued and we were all trying to pull a fast one on them apparently!

Think we'll keep looking and just wait and see with this one!

Thanks everyone much appreciated

Just a word of warning - you won't be able to bypass the original agent as I know they can and do check the land registry to see who the buyers are. Obviously this wouldn't be your problem though - it would be the seller's.

I don't see how the old EA has any claim to fees, if a buyer deals with the new agent, if their contract has ended that is.

The seller sounds like an entitled idiot. If they had so much interest, why didn't they increase the price with existing agent, or wait for the offers to come in then accept the best offer?

Normally if I see a house change agent, or go with multiple agents, I think they are desperate sellers, or need a big price to be able to break even/clear debts.

It sounds as though if you had offered less than asking price, they would of been happier and possibly of accepted. There's not much point in trying to reason with them or befriend them now. Stick with your generous offer and keep looking, leave them to their games.

It's generally in the contract that whoever introduced a buyer to the house gets the commission (or at least part of), regardless of if the contract has ended. It's largely to prevent someone seeing the house, contacting you direct and you taking the house off and proceeding privately to try and escape ea's fees.

The vendors in this case do sound greedy at the very least!

Dargh! So it now turns out they've put it on with another agent but for the SAME price only saying OIEO?!

Feel like just withdrawing the offer now as the whole point in offering asking price was to get it off the market quickly and show we were serious and decent buyers and instead they've done the exact opposite, Really annoyed to think they will now use our offer to push anyone else interested into bidding up the price and agree with housepicturesque that we should have gone in with a lower price :-( guess we will be wiser in future and hope any other FTBs reading can benefit from hearing about our mistake this time :-(

Is there a word for being angry, gutted and frustrated all at the same time? So flippin' Angfrutted that this has happened