Estate Agents

[petesgrayz]

My house has been on the market for over a year, during which time the agent has been useless. I now have someone interested in the property who was introduced through the agent. The couple are in no hurry to exchange contracts so can I take the property off the market and sell to the couple later on.

[Whickerman]

You signed a contract with the agents - unless you can get agreement that the contract is over then no, you can't avoid paying their fees. Even then, if they discover you've sold to a customer they introduced to you they could claim their fees.

[Whickerman]

http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/Law/Civil/Quest ion387632.html

Could you not just call each other...?

[Oneeyedvic]

Most sensible estate agents will have a list of people who ring up / enquire about properties. If this person is on that list (ie they enquired about your property) then the estate agent can / will say that they introduced that person to you. I would suggest (opinion only) that if you were to take it off for around 6 months then look at marketing it again, the estate agent wouldn't have a chance, but if you took it off and sold it privately before that the estate agent would probably send you a bill and sue you if you didn't pay.

[lady_p_gold]

My friend had exactly the same situation and the estate agents hadn't even passed on offers to him which he in fact would have taken. In disgust he took it off the market and about a year later met one of the people who had put in an offer and yet it had never been passed to my friend. He sold it to him and the estate agents sent a bill for commission. My friend refused to pay and they took him to Court and they WON! So beware!