Selling privately when signed up with an estate agent - do I still have to pay fees?

[Bellabelloo]

We put our house on the market this week. The parents of one of the girls I work with are looking to relocate to the area to be closer to the grandchildren. I told her we were putting the house on the market and her parents drove down today to see the house and want to put in an offer.

Does anyone have any experience of this? The contract seems to imply that we have to pay the estate agent regardless, but while I would be happy to pay for the costs they have incurred, they haven't even shown anyone around.

Thanks for your help.

Read the contract, if necessary have someone with experience read the contract. If you know that the offer will be at an acceptable level for you then you can ask them to hold off making a formal offer until you are out of contract with the estate agent. You may be able to withdraw it from the market immediately if you have a cooling off period with the agent. Or you could tell them that circumstances have changed and you are no longer selling, then give it a few weeks before proceeding with your buyers.

Yes usually. I know when I sold my first house we has someone interested and we had to declare their names so that if they did offer we didn't have to pay, but anyone after that we did. But like PP said, check your contract.

Check your contract. Standard clauses are likely to mean that you are liable for the fees - as there is usually a field in there which specifically asks you if you have an existing 'expressions of interest'. If you do, then you put their names/details in the contract and in the event that they end up buying your property then you are usually only liable for the marketing costs rather than the whole fee.

If you haven't done this then it's most likely that you're liable for it - although it is always worth asking if they will negotiate. My contract stated single agent only but I negotiated with them and got them to agree to a dual-agent 'winner takes all' package without any penalties, so it really is a case of don't ask don't get!

We are in the middle of going through a private sale. We were advertised with a local agent which we have used before. They checked that they had not had any enquiries from our buyer and agreed that we are not bond to pay their fees.
We agreed to pay the agent's advertising costs which is very little. We want to keep the goodwill as we may need to use them again.

There is usually a cooling off period in which you can cancel, check the contract...

My DH sold a house through a private sale the agents asked and he just said no you didn't introduce the buyer they muttered about court and his solicitor asked them to show good reason and they had none.