Anyone been taken to court for agents fees?

[HopelessEstateAgents]

I don't believe we should pay our agent's commission and am disputing this with them.

Does anyone know, if they choose to take us to court, what additional sum (approximately) could we end up liable for, if they win? The disputed fee is approx 8k.

Would it be small claims court?

What's your reason for saying they shouldn't be paid. Were these pre arranged and signed for?

Hi - prefer not to go into it as I don't like to post details all over the Internet. Just hoping someone can comment on approx additional fees E.g is it small claims etc

Yes they will take you to court. Did you sell your house to a buyer they introduced or not. Its black and white.

Small claims wont incur much in the way of costs. Provided it doesn’t escalate of course

Its not necessarily black and white. A dispute of £8k is likely to be small claims. If its small claims court there will be very minimal additional fees (a few hundred) so your risk in fighting it in court is relatively small.

Agree, the details are important because you might be totally wasting your time / money. But all the details on small claims court fees and criteria are here.

https://www.gov.uk/make-court-claim-for-money

Less than £10k is a small claim and falls within the remit of the small claims track and the fixed costs there.
However if the claimant adds in anything else as per the contractually agreed terms, it could easily bump it up to a fast track matter and the fast track costs regime.

I'd be cautious about inviting someone to issue against you so close to the threshold.

What have you agreed to in the contract regarding fees?

IANAL.

But I would have thought it is up to the agent how the (potential) breach of contract is addressed. They may choose to pursue via the small claims court, or there may be other possibilities.

Estate agent contracts are normally pretty clear and well tested as this sort of issue can come up a lot. You may want to consider paying a solicitor for an independent opinion on how likely their claim is to be successful - one of those cases where legal advice may be expensive, but not taking it may be more expensive still.

It doesn’t need to be small claims, they can actually go higher. My husbands firm have one going through for 2 grand now, but that’s very unusual.

I find it very unlikely that they will use small claims. If they do, it will have to be prepared in house, because lawyers are not allowed to be involved in small claims disputes (well, at the very least, they are not allowed to re claim lawyer costs and the guidance says you should not use them).

It's far more likely to be a traditional lawyer in a normal court, which could cost you a lot of money.

Whatever type of case it is, you will be expected to go into some sort of mediation to resolve the dispute before it goes to court. If you don't participate in this, you may find it quite hard to win. Courts like to see that you have tried your best not to waste their time before it reaches them.

Think carefully about whether it is worth disputing this, unless there is a clear breach of contract e.g. they didn't sell your house and the contract says that the fee is only payable if they did. If you have a legitimate cause for complaint, but no clear breach, you may save yourself a world of hassle and expense by agreeing a compromise e.g. a reduction of fees.

They will certainly pursue a claim, if found in their favour you may find yourself responsible for their legal costs too, unusual but not unheard of.

I know it’s a pain paying them when they haven’t provided a good service, ours were rubbish, but they did sell our house, the solicitor settled the invoice from the proceeds of our sale.

Good luck.

Appreciate the advice and perspectives, thank you

OP here.

If anyone would like an update we got to pre-property ombudsman stage, where we wrote a letter clearly calling out their multiple failings, with supporting evidence.

At that point they agreed we didn't owe them the fees.

Yay! Well done OP 👏

Yep well done - despite the doubters :)

The doubts weren’t surrounding the ins and outs of whether the OP was satisfied with the service she’d received.

They could well have just withdrawn because the amount of effort and time taken up to go to mediation would not have been cost effective but well done OP

@Spirallingdownwards

Nah. I rock at strongly worded, well supported letters.

Also the mediation is free (property ombudsman)

We went to our estate agent many years ago and said that we had sold the house outside of their involvement - it was genuine - a random person rolling up at the door before ads/board had gone out, and they agreed and waived the fee.

Their time and effort in having to attend has a commercial value

@Spirallingdownwards

No, you don't attend the obudsman.