Are you as a buyer obligated to stay with a certain estate agent?

[MummyNessi]

Hello,
We are house hunting in a fairly expensive area ( Surrey, London side) and have quite a thigh budget.
We visited this house we loved a few months ago and made a low offer that was rejected.
The same property has gone down in price now and is with an internet agent as well. We still can't afford asking price. But I'm thinking they might accept a lower offer through the internet agent than the high street one..?
As they don't take commissions..
Can I do that ( legally) or am I obligated to go with the agent I viewed with in the past?

No, you can contact whichever EA you wish, you owe no loyalty.

The contract is between the estate agent and the seller and has nothing to do with you whatsoever. No obligation on your part at all. Having said that it'll still be the vendor themselves that turned down the offer, not the estate agent so it might not work.

Good luck.

Don't see any reason why you can't approach the internet agent, although they might still not accept the offer there's nothing to stop you - give it a shot, why not

Thank you!
That's great, I know they might still not accept but worth a try!

We had an issue with this as a buyer. The first estate agent claimed we were introduced to the property by them (as we were) but we saw it months later with a new agent, so first were going to sue the home owner for the money if he accepted our offer that we placed with the new agent. In sure with cool heads it could have been worked out buy the home owner was terrified.

You aren't but the seller may still be contracted to the first agent and be charged a fee for the introduction whoever the sale proceeds via.

Agree that you don't need to go with any particular agent as the buyer. But the seller will have a contract with the estate agent and will most likely be charged if you end up buying the house even if it's not through that particular agent, because they introduced you. Guess it's partly to stop people then just doing their own deals without the involvement of the estate agent once they have a buyer.

What I am saying is this could be a headache but not insurmountable, but will not be free.

As others have said, you may be potentially causing a problem for the seller. As you viewed and offered with EA1, it is highly likely that if you buy the property that EA1 have a legal basis for claiming a fee from the vendor, even if you now contact the vendors via EA2.

We viewed a house with Agent 1 and made an offer that was turned down. The seller moved to Agent 2 but Agent 2 had to refer us back to Agent 1 as they had introduced us. We are buying the house but we have had to deal with Agent 1 as they introduced us. This is standard it seems.