Advice about outrageous estate agent behaviour

[greenleaf1]

We sold our house in London a couple of months ago. The part of London where we were is home to a large, very particular religious community and they made up over 90% of the market for our house. They have a very specific way of dealing with property purchases and it took a long time to sell the house, and was very difficult.

DH went back to the house today and met our buyer and had a good chat with him. He is very scared and unhappy because the estate agent who sold the house for us apparently charged him £50,000 to put his offer forward to us to give him the advantage over “other bidders”. This estate agent is now threatening him with legal action because he hasn’t paid this £50,000. We are horrified by this. There were no “other bidders” as far as we were aware, but we had many interested viewers from this community and no offers. It seems this estate agent may have been asking for backhanders from other people that never made their way forward to us. We obviously can’t prove this.

What can we do about this? Who do we report this to? I have seen the documents from our buyer - the estate agent has sent him a contract from his own private company with the sum owed for the “introduction” plus VAT. There are also letters from the estate agents solicitor demanding payment. The other complicating issue is that our buyer is scared. He doesn’t want us to use the documents but we can’t let this go. I can’t believe this has gone on behind our backs and we need to get to the bottom of it.

Would really appreciate your advice.

Legally an estate agent has to pass on ALL offers made to you, in writing. This might be an angle you can take.

I think the EA might be using contract language from a ‘finders fee/property consultation’ set up. So your buyer might have a battle on his hands if he signed it.

i think your own course of action will be about if the EA didn’t pass on all offers to you.

Haha, I'm not an estate agent no. But I wouldn't get myself involved in a financial dispute that was none of my concern. I've got enough of my own problems.

By all means testify you didn't believe there were any other buyers and you didn't condone this fee of which he speaks, but I'd just honestly be wary of it all taking up too much headspace.

The Solicitor may be in trouble as well if they take action in relation to something unlawful

Why do so many posters think this is none of OP's business? She had a contract with this estate agent which presumably said (as they all do) that he would pass on all offers. She would have paid him commission to do that, and he didn't. She may well have suffered material loss in the form of not receiving higher offers.

Many years ago I had a similar situation, was getting no viewings for my flat except for one property developer whose offer was extremely low. By weird coincidence, a family friend who was a local cabbie got chatting to a customer who said he'd wanted to view my flat but was told it was already sold. Unfortunately my friend didn't bother getting his contact details so I had no evidence. I did go to the estate agents all guns blazing but they denied everything. In the end I was defeated and accepted the developer's offer. And that is how I sold a two bed London flat for £38k...

That’s outrageous. I’m sorry that happened to you.

The commission is dependent on what was paid for the house. OP said it took a long time to sell, and she wasn't aware of any other offers. That hardly suggests that there were tens of buyers wanting to buy her house at a much higher price, but the estate agent put them all off.

If there were multiple people who really wanted it, is it likely they would all have just accepted the estate agent going 'No, I'm not going to put your bid forward unless you pay me £50k?' and just said 'Ah fair enough then!' Not come directly to you, gone to the police, tried to contact a regulatory body....?

And how on earth would OP go about proving any of this? Presumably she doesn't have any details of any of the other people who came to view her house. All she has is the word of the buyer who a) won't agree to hand over the only thing that could be used as a proof and b) apparently firstly agreed to a backhander to get ahead of others in his own community, and then broke his promise, so hardly comes across as a morally upright person himself!

You have zero idea of how this community works. I had to laugh at the idea of them going to “the police or the regulatory body” or come to us. They don’t do that. Ever. And yes indeed I’m sure our buyer isn’t some paragon of virtue but we have the proof from him that he was charged this fee, and that is very, very problematic for me. Did you actually read this thread?

I obviously don't think it's okay. But you have no proof of anything other than a second hand screenshot from someone who sounds like a pretty dodgy individual themselves, and no actual evidence that you lost out in anyway. If there were buyers keen enough to pay significantly more than you ended up selling for, then they wouldn't have just let the EA get away with not putting their offer forward.

Bearing in mind that a slightly higher offer would also have resulted in higher commission and higher SD (or the equivalent wherever you live), how much do you think you might be missing out on at the end of the day?

If you tried to take some sort of legal action on this, what damages do you actually think you might get, given you have no proof you've actually lost out financially? At most you miiiight get your commission back on the basis that the EA didn't fulfil their contract, but would have to shell out a hell of a lot on legal fees. Is it really worth it?

If, rather than the buyer, you'd been contacted by someone whose (higher) bid hadn't been passed on and who (key) had proof they were willing to provide of this, then it would be completely different.

Did you actually read this thread? I said right at the top I think it is highly unlikely we could prove anything in the way of financial loss or claim anything back. We are under absolutely no illusions at all we would get any compensation. I’m certainly not paying a lawyer to pursue that. What is concerning me here is this is what appears to be an estate agent acting outrageously and illegally. It doesn’t matter if it’s a screenshot or not we have had sight of the contract our buyer signed with this estate agent and it shows a blatant conflict of interest. I don’t think an estate agent should be able to get away with behaving like that, do you?

So yes I'd report the estate agent, either to the regulatory body for EAs and also perhaps to the HQ as you said it's a large chain.
However, sad as the buyers situation is, I don't think you can and should get involved in that.

What part of London is it? Asking because I will be looking to sell soon and wonder if I would have a similar issue.

It’s North London. DM me if you want to know whereabouts.

I am pretty sure I know the area you are talking about, OP, and the community, and the more I think about it the less it surprises me. It cant be easy, on the open market, to keep the community together and the community absolutely has to be kept together. Im not surprised people are finding workarounds. Im not saying its ok, but I get it.

It’s been a nightmare dealing with them over the house sale. I’m not going to go into detail here but their behaviour has been extremely problematic. I’ll put more in a DM if you’re interested.

I’d report to the police and the relevant body for governance of estate agents. I couldn’t just ignore it.

It’s not ok when those workarounds are criminal, which they may well be in this case.

OP could have sold the house for more if other offers had been able to reach her without going through this fraudulent estate agent. Why are you so annoyed she wants to report illegal behaviour?

Is it the orthodox Jewish community?

Under the Estate Agents Act 1979 agents are required to pass on all written offers to sellers as soon as possible. Their Code of Practice also requires this. Added to which, omitting material information is in breach of consumer protection law.

I‘d report to agent to Trading Standards. You could also sue him, though it might be difficult to establish a loss (depending on what other offers may have been made and not passed on, and what you sold for).

It’s also fraud.

If I viewed a house I wanted to offer on, and the agent demanded £50k to put the offer forward, I’d just go round to the house one evening and speak to the vendors myself. But I appreciate everyone’s different.

Thank you @CherryVanillaPiethat’s what we’re concerned about too. Although it will probably be impossible to prove we’ve suffered a loss due to this man’s behaviour.

That’s exactly what I would do too @Elektra1 Unfortunately for us the community concerned is pretty closed to outsiders so I’m not surprised that didn’t happen in our case.