Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Property/DIY

Join our Property forum for renovation, DIY, and house selling advice.

Original poster

Agent fees - old buyer coming through new agent

16 replies

Evecob · 29/01/2021 22:56

Hi,

Please could anyone with more knowledge/experience that us advise us please?

We put our house up for sale with 2 agents (A and B) and sold our house with agent B, found a house not long after. The house we were buying sadly pulled out close to exchange. Due to our buyer having specific completion timeframe criteria we also felt we had to drop out, so was off market completely.

We debated staying and extending or going back up on market. After a month we decided to go back up on market with agent A.
Our old buyer saw the house up for sale. Contacted agent B (??) Who contacted us to say she still wanted to buy our house. Note that we are no longer on the market with agent B...Agent A also contact us to say the old buyer is interested.

We are honestly not sure if we want to sell to our old buyer again but if we decide to go through with selling with agent A, which is our preferred route, will we have to pay agent B anything legally?

OP posts:
bilbodog · 29/01/2021 23:19

You need to speak to your current agent and see what they suggest. The two agents might agree to split the fees so nobody loses out. What were the terms of the contract before - winner takes all, 60/40 or something like that?

Original poster
Evecob · 29/01/2021 23:30

No, agent A is an online agent. Agent b is highstreet who ticked multiagency on contract as we were with A first :/

We do not want to go back on with agent b at all. Didnt agree with their working style. Didnt expect the old buyer to be interested either... but since we are only now on with agent A i wasnt sure where we stood legally with it

OP posts:
ballsdeep · 29/01/2021 23:34

I'm not sure sorry op.

Why did they pull out? Will it affect the sale later on down the line?

lastqueenofscotland · 29/01/2021 23:41

Check the clauses of your contract it’ll likely be in there that you’ll owe them both their fee if you sell to this buyer, and courts literally always uphold it if you try to dispute.

Original poster
Evecob · 29/01/2021 23:55

@ballsdeep

I'm not sure sorry op.

Why did they pull out? Will it affect the sale later on down the line?

The buyer didnt pull out, our sellers did so we did. There wasnt anything else on market we wanted at the time and our buyer was pushing hard for a specific completion date. We could not fulfil that anymore so we came off market with both agents.
OP posts:
Lampan · 29/01/2021 23:57

As I understand it, the agent who first introduced the buyer to the house would be in line for the commission. But this is based on horrible experience several years ago so I may be wrong!

Original poster
Evecob · 29/01/2021 23:58

@lastqueenofscotland

Check the clauses of your contract it’ll likely be in there that you’ll owe them both their fee if you sell to this buyer, and courts literally always uphold it if you try to dispute.
Our contract with who, Agent B? We dont have a copy so have no idea, but we are no longer selling through them and dont intend to, so would have thought the contract doesnt mean anything now?
OP posts:
KihoBebiluPute · 30/01/2021 00:04

You need to get a copy pronto!

It will probably have a clause saying that if you sell to anyone that they introduced you to any time in the next (insert time period, e.g.18 months) then you owe them their fees.

When we swapped agents after agent A turned out to be useless fuckwits we asked them to provide us with a list of all the people they introduced us to, so that we would know if we were incurring any additional liability from this clause when we eventually found a buyer but we sold to someone else entirely.

KihoBebiluPute · 30/01/2021 00:06

But to be clear, your contract with the Agent still applies and incurs obligations with terms like this. You taking the house off the market temporarily does not void the contract you signed.

lastqueenofscotland · 30/01/2021 00:20

As another poster said there will be a clause in their about buyers they have introduced, and if you sell to them within whatever window you’re liable for their fee, the other agent will likely claim theirs as well.
As I say, the courts in almost every case will
uphold this so it could be very expensive!

PointyMcguire · 30/01/2021 12:06

I’m a bit confused why you didn’t speak to your buyer and see if there was any movement when your purchase fell through before pulling out of your sale, but it is what it is I guess. You will likely be liable to pay fees to the original agent as they introduced the buyer and potentially your current agent too depending on what their contract states.

GU24Mum · 30/01/2021 14:42

Agent B introduced the buyer to you so they will get the commission. If there were two high street agents in the same scenario they'd probably come to an arrangement behind the scenes but are unlikely to do so here if one is online.

If you don't want Agent B involved then you'll need to find a new buyer. how bad is Agent B? I'd put up with a mediocre agent for a keen buyer!

pumkinpopsickle · 30/01/2021 14:43

It's not just an introduction. They have to actually facilitated the sale to be entitled to their commission.

How far did the original sale go with your buyers?

Original poster
Evecob · 30/01/2021 18:35

it did go pretty far, we were fairly close to exchange, still had a few bits to do. It doesn't matter anymore anyway, they decided they want to offer 5k less which we don't want to accept.

OP posts:
KihoBebiluPute · 31/01/2021 08:48

I think you might be giving up too easily.
£5k is nothing on the scale of a house purchase. It means about £3 per month difference in mortgage repayments. They will have spent a lot of money on legal and search fees for your house that they will be throwing away if they can't make a deal with you.

Keep the door open this time. It's fine to have a firm negotiating position I am not telling you to give in, but it's silly to give up when the amount of money on the table that you can't agree on is so small. Now it is possible that they are the ones being silly of course, but don't let it be you.

You should say something like "due to the sale breaking down before and the fact that you approached us via a different agent the second time, we are going to be liable for an additional £xxxx in agent fees if we sell to you due to the contracts we have with both. So we are not in a position to accept a lower offer and really ought to be asking you to share this additional burden by increasing your offer by (half of £xxxx) but from good will we won't ask that of you if we can proceed to an exchange date of (insert date) without further delay."

Remember that for some, walking away from the table is just a negotiation tactic, it's not the end of the conversation.

Onmyleft · 31/01/2021 09:09

Can you say more about why you are not being open to working with your existing buyers? It’s unclear what it is you want. I think the estate agent fee thing would s a side issue. Where you stand will be set out in the contracts. Do you want to sell or not? You seem uncertain.

You might think you’ll get better buyers but given expectations for the market you might lose more than £5k.

New posts on this thread. Refresh page