Can the estate agent do this ?? Money after completion

[sunintheeast]

I dont ferl we should pay...We completed on a house just before Christmas - now had an email from the estate agents stating that they are "£500 short after getting the (buyers) invoice and please can we transfer the additional funds to them at our earliest convenience" - the estate agents were shocking throughout the process unnecessary delays etc poor communication - as we have completed and all monies transferred AIBU to just say no it is your mistake ...
Any legal/property people out there - is this normal? legal?

Buyer's don't invoice estate agents. What is the extra £500 for? You only need to pay what you are contractually required to, which is about 1.5 - 3% of the sale price, and your solicitor should pay that before sending the remaining funds to you.

I’m unsure if you are the buyer or the seller. The seller pays the EA, not the buyer so if you bought, it is not your problem. If you sold, tell them to speak to your solicitor. They will have all of the paperwork including the estate agents fees and how much was paid to them on completion. Whenever we have bought and sold, the solicitor has paid the EA from the funds, we have not transferred it ourselves.

Your solicitor pays the estate agent when the sale reaches completion.

They shouldn’t be contacting you directly to ask for more money. Have you misunderstood something, because they wouldn’t be invoicing buyers either.

We are the sellers in this case but the EA state that it is our buyers solicitors who got the sums wrong and are now reclaiming against them
. A cost they want to pass onto us

Is this a house you sold?

And the EA is saying they have been invoice £500 by the people who purchased the house? What for?

Ok, but why is this the estate agent? Surely they need to go through your solicitor

This makes no sense at all. What was your contract with the EA. Typically it’s either a % of the final sale price or a fixed fee. Upon completion, your solicitor would arrange the payment. It has nothing to do with the buyer nor their solicitor.

(Are you in England - caveat)

You should be able to check what your splitter has taken from the sale fund -is the agent is correct

edit soliciter not spitter

Talk to your solicitor as this doesn't make sense.

You didn't buy via the Modern Method of Auction though did you?

So its not your error or omission? You've paid what was in your contract? So there would be no legal recourse? I would reply 'tough titties' and ignore. Not your problem.

Refer them to your solicitor. All paperwork which all parties have agreed, will have been checked before completion. If their solicitors have made a mistake, that is on them, not you.

And don’t engage with them any further!

Are you in England?

I don’t understand why the buyer’s solicitor would give them anything. Did you have a contract with the EA that you would pay x% of the sale price as a fee, and has your solicitor done that? I think that’s the only important bit.

I would decline ... We paid the balance at completion via our solicitors. As far as we are concerned we have paid in full the amounts requested and any errors on your part, and/or that of the buyers' solicitor needs to lie with person(s) making such error.

Ask them to go through your solicitor that you used during the sale.

Refer them to the solicitor every time.

I can’t make head nor tail of this, but are you £500 better off because of some mistake?

Of not, it’s not for you to pay.

What is supposed to happen is that all of the actual financial transactions are handled by the solicitor. They receive the money from your mortgage provider and from your own funds if you are adding anything, and from the sale of any property you are selling. They then organise to pay the required sums of Stamp Duty and estate agents fees and their own fees and to then pay the amount due for the property you are buying to the solicitor acting for those vendors. If after all these things are paid there is money left over then they issue you with a cheque. If the amount of money they hold on the day of completion is not sufficient to pay all these then the completion does not happen, unless the solicitor has made a mistake.

So if the estate agent is short by £500 it is the solicitor to blame and the estate agent should take it up with them.

Ea is stating that their costs are 500 more than calculated... and are sskkng it from our solicitors ... from the looks of it they have all got their sums wrong and want us to pay.. ive asked for a breakdown of why

The estate agent is just the marketer, they dont have any control or influence of the sale time. We just went through the process in December so my knowledge is current. You pay them whatever was in your contact, 1 percent fixed fee of £5000 etc. If you so.icitor transferred them too little then they need to go back to them and they will deal with it, potentially asking you for the money. The buyer doesn't pay the estate agent anything so I think there has been a misunderstanding somewhere

No old fashioned way.. reputable EA

Surely your solictor has underpaid your agent?

If so I believe you are contractually obliged to pay what you said you would. Check the actual sale price, the % agreed as agents fee, and how much your solictor paid to your agent.

Your solictor may have overpaid you and underpaid your agent.

Up to the agent how far theyd take it if that was the case. But if you signed the contract I think you'd lose the case.

Surely you agreed what you would pay the EA for the sale up front? Ours was 1% of the sale price, a simple amount to work out, and was deducted from the proceeds and paid by the solicitor to the EA on completion. If the EA can show the transaction and it’s wrong then why wouldn’t you pay them any missing amount@sunintheeast ? If they are correct I’d be expecting your solicitor to be in touch saying they messed up though. Of course, if you want to negotiate a discount because you don’t feel they did what they should, that’s up to you (but is a separate issue from whether there’s been a mistake).

No old fashioned way.. reputable EA

But what “buyer’s invoice” are they referring to? Why has the buyer invoiced them?

And £500 more than calculated - calculated when and by who? £500 more than your solicitor has calculated, because your solicitor has done it wrong? Or £500 more than what they calculated when drawing up the contract?

Is this the estate agent who sold your old property or the estate agent who marketed the place you bought?

If it's the ones who marketed the place you bought then it's nothing to do with you and you can ignore it.

If it's the ones who sold your previous place then look at the contract and check what it says about fees due. This should be either a fixed fee or a fixed percentage of the eventual sale price. It would be possible for e.g. their contractually agreed fee is 1.5% of the eventual sale price so would be £7,500 on a sale of a £500,000 property but if the solicitor cut corners with copying and pasting from a previous job without checking the numbers, maybe only transferred £7,000 - in which case the £500 is legitimately owed and you need to pay. If it's not part of the specified fee that you have contractually agreed to pay then you do not owe it.