Cancelling a sale

handofdog

Hi all.

Hypothetical question.

Suppose that
1. I engage an estate agent to sell our house
2. Estate agent begins the selling process and spends money advertising our house
3. At some stage before our house is sold we change our mind about selling (let's say that something unexpected happens)

Where does that leave us? Obviously I will owe the estate agent money since they are out of pocket and they also will have spent time and effort on selling our place.

Is there a standard cancellation fee or what should I expect to pay?

Thanks in advance for any advice and if more detail is needed then please just ask.

Cheers

Ayuntamiento

handofdog wrote: »

Hi all.

Hypothetical question.

Suppose that
1. I engage an estate agent to sell our house
2. Estate agent begins the selling process and spends money advertising our house
3. At some stage before our house is sold we change our mind about selling (let's say that something unexpected happens)

Where does that leave us? Obviously I will owe the estate agent money since they are out of pocket and they also will have spent time and effort on selling our place.

Is there a standard cancellation fee or what should I expect to pay?

Thanks in advance for any advice and if more detail is needed then please just ask.

Cheers

Have you gotten to a point where a buyer has engaged a solicitor, conducted a survey, ordered a bank valuation,etc? If not then ok. Otherwise, you're behaving like an asshole.

godtabh

What does your letter of engagement with the EA say? That should cover everything

nhunter100

Ayuntamiento wrote:

Have you gotten to a point where a buyer has engaged a solicitor, conducted a survey, ordered a bank valuation,etc? If not then ok. Otherwise, you're behaving like an asshole.

People change their minds, circumstances change. Doesn't make them a**holes. Have you the same opinion if a buyer changes their mind?

handofdog

Thanks guys.

We haven't engaged with the estate agent yet.

Ayuntamiento, I completely agree that it would be very bad form to cancel if a buyer has started proceedings. Apologies if I wasn't clear but that's certainly not the way that I would do things.

Here's a bit more detail:
- there's a house that we're really interested in.
- it has been on the market for 6 weeks and the asking price has been offered but I believe that they may want more
- we have mortgage approval in principle but the estate agent who is selling that house won't accept an offer unless we have full approval - i.e. sale agreed
- if we were to sell our house then there would be no problem in finance
- houses in this area don't come up very often

As such, if the house that we were interested in were to sell before we got sale agreed on our house then I would strongly consider taking our house off the market and going "back to ground" to save further - i.e. there is nothing else in the area that we want at the moment.

Since we haven't yet agreed with our estate agent then I don't have any detail.

I want to be very up front with our estate agent and let them know that if the other house sells then we want to take our house off the market. I'm certainly not trying to be underhand here.

I'm just trying to get a ballpark figure of what I would owe our estate agent as a fair and reasonable price.

the_syco

handofdog wrote: »

I'm just trying to get a ballpark figure of what I would owe our estate agent as a fair and reasonable price.

The EA should have told you when they started working for you, otherwise if you waited until the end of the sale, he could pick a 5 digit number out of the sky and tell you to pay it.

topmanamillion

handofdog wrote: »

I'm just trying to get a ballpark figure of what I would owe our estate agent as a fair and reasonable price.

You`re asking how long is a length of string.

He has his set fee plus commission. You should know what these are.
You could end up paying anything below that line depending on the level of expenses your EA calculates.

davo10

Also bear in mind op, from a vendor's/EA's perspective, you are the least appealing bidder after cash buyers, first time buyers and buyers without a property to sell.

4ensic15

An EA is supposed to give a letter of instructions when he takes instructions to sell a property. This should itemise his fees. It is possible to negotiate a no sale- no fee deal whereby the EA does not become entitled to a fee (other than agreed outlay) unless he has introduced a ready able and willing buyer.

handofdog

Thanks for the responses.

I'll talk with him today and see what he says regarding fees.

4ensic15

O/p you could tell your EA what the problem is. He may know the other EA for the house you want to buy and may be able to broker a deal. Sometimes EAs work together to broker a deal to the benefit of both.

Thestones

Usually there is an upfront charge for advertising etc, say 400 for example and when you actually sell they get their commission on top of that so I think if you pull out then you've already paid the upfront costs and don't think there is anything further but each agency would have their own policies. Regarding the house your interested in have you told that EA that you need to sell your house in order to finance it? Coz it's highly unlikely they would want to proceed with you as a buyer knowing that information, you have no idea how long it would take to sell.