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?

Seller responsible for their own fees. The only invoice / payment due is what is contracted as the sales fee in your agreement.

So what was the agreement that you signed with the agent? It’s should be easy to check ?

Is the EA a member of a professional body ?
If it escalates, and they, are consult the professional body.

You as the seller would have agreed a figure (either a flat fee or percentage) with your EA to sell your property and your solicitor would have given you a breakdown of their fees to do all the legal work. When the solicitor sent you the invoice at exchange/ completion point, was it £500 short on the EA fees? When I sold my property my EA fee was listed on the completion invoice along with many other solicitor fees. I’m not sure what this buyers invoice is for? You may need to clarify with the EA.

You need to consult your solicitor and ask for a detailed breakdown of what is being asked for. On the face of it this sounds like a mess up from someone else and not your problem!

It sounds like the completion statement was incorrectly calculated maybe? When we sold our solicitor worked it all out (sale proceeds, buying cost, stamp duty, EA, legal fees) and then they paid everyone from funds transferred to them by us. But I dont understand where the buyer comes into this.

Are they saying they added up their costs wrong in their invoice to you, for example, you should have paid £5000 but they only charged you £4500? You need to ask for a complete breakdown before you pay any more.

What are the numbers? Ie if you have sold at 500k for a 2% fee - your solicitor should have paid them £10k (I think). Did she or he pay the correct amount? Are they saying you only paid 9.5k for e.g.?

'Take this up with my solicitors' would be my reply.

It’s worth double-checking what you originally agreed with the agent, just in case. Some contracts have an escalating fee clause (for example a percentage of anything achieved over a certain price), which can catch people out.
Also worth checking whether there are any outstanding charges for things like the EPC or photography if the agent arranged them — sometimes those get invoiced separately.
If it’s not clearly set out in what you signed, question it.

OP, they haven't given you new bank details or a link to pay in the email at all? Probably not this, but estate agents and solicitors are often targeted by scammers due to the large amounts of money involved in their work.

If that's the case the solicitor should pay.

Are you in England?

The solicitors normally pay agents commission fees from proceeds of sale. Speak to your solicitor.

Have you definitely paid them in line with the contract you agreed in the first place?

Is "Buyers' invoice" definitely what they meant? It doesn't make any sense to me in this context. The onus is on them to make it make sense before you would consider it any further.

You signed a contract with the EA. What commission did you agree to and was this the amount deducted?

Ignore and leave it to your solicitor to deal with. The contract has completed so if the EA fucked up, that’s on them.

Its probably an email scam. I work in fraud and see thousands of such cases involving house purchases, usually deposits. The email address is usually very slightly different to the correct one so people think the invoice has come from the solicitors/estate agent. Call the estate agent, from the officially listed number not the one on the email, and find out whats going on.

There needs to be a full accounting of all funds and they need to demonstrate the money owed.

Our solicitor came back to us 3 years after completing (3 years!!!) saying we were £999 short because we never paid them for the cost of the mortgage product. But we rolled mortgage costs into the mortgage, so they were never involved in paying those funds (or they shouldn’t have been, if they somehow paid the bank in error).

I asked for an itemised bill, but they could only partly provide one. I’ve combed through all their costs and all the payments we made to them. And something is off. But it’s not £999 off and they can’t provide a fully itemised bill to show all our charges, so I’m not paying. We’re coming up to 5 years now (!!) and still every 6 months someone will email and ask us to pay, but they are still confused about what we owe. Every time they email, the amount changes. 😂 Until it’s clear as per a full accounting on their end, nothing will be paid.

Are you sure this isn’t a scam?
There’s some sophisticated scams out there where they appear as though the email has come from your solicitor.

Also, presume you have an agreement from the EA, and a breakdown from your solicitor. If the two values on those match, this isn’t your issue.

So either the EA have given the wrong amount to the solicitor, or the solicitor has made an error when paying the funds.

Are you saying they are asking for more than you were contractually obliged to pay or that they have accidentally undercharged you. If the latter pay them what you owe.

It's irrelevant what you perceive their service to be be. Most people get shocking service from EAs. Ultimately they did the job that was required

Work out the percentage on the contract and if you owe the money then you have to pay it, surely as that is in the contract whether some made a mistake in the transferring of monies or not. It's annoying, they are incompetent but the contract will be the important bit.

Agree with someone else - either your EA calculated their fees incorrectly to start with or your solicitor didn't calculate the monies owed to your EA correctly. I would say regardless which scenario it is, you need to contact your solicitor, and pass the letter onto them (keeping a copy for yourself, of course). Your solicitor needs to deal with this on your behalf. Ultimately though, if you owe the money, I would have thought you would need to pay it.

Their beef is with the solicitor. It's then up to the solicitor whether they entertain the claim if its justifiable, their error or an error made by the estate agent in sending the invoice. .

Not your mistake = not your problem