Go Back  British Expats > Living & Moving Abroad > Australia
Reload this Page >

Warning If Selling House!

Warning If Selling House!

Old May 17th 2005, 12:03 pm
  #1  
Just Joined
Thread Starter
 
Joined: Oct 2004
Posts: 16
Titchy will become famous soon enough
Default Warning If Selling House!

Hello we are about to sell our property (all going well) via Haart estate agents. On signing the contract agreement we were told that commission is based on the price of the property.
Be warned this commission fee is not based as a percentage of the sale price but the original price as advice by Haart ie if they suggest a price of £105K and you sell for £99K or lower as we did the commission fee stays the at the same amount. This was not made clear to us before signing the contract. It is also not clear on the contract.

You could sell a property for £80K or less and still end up paying £2500+ commission - work out the percentage on that!

Selling is therefore a risk with Haart as they have no insentive to sell at the best price as they recieve the highest agreed commission no matter how low the price of your property sells for. Having a fixed fee would benefit the seller if the price of the property increased over the original price but that is rare these days.

If we were informed of this risk by Haart we would have never have agreed to sell with them and would have sought out a seller that charged fees as a percentage of the selling price.

Haart manager claims that they are the only agent that charges a fixed fee in this way, good luck to them!


All times are GMT
next newest topic | next oldest
Titchy is offline  
Old May 17th 2005, 1:02 pm
  #2  
BE Enthusiast
 
Joined: Apr 2005
Location: Gloucester
Posts: 346
boom_meringue is an unknown quantity at this pointboom_meringue is an unknown quantity at this pointboom_meringue is an unknown quantity at this pointboom_meringue is an unknown quantity at this pointboom_meringue is an unknown quantity at this pointboom_meringue is an unknown quantity at this pointboom_meringue is an unknown quantity at this pointboom_meringue is an unknown quantity at this pointboom_meringue is an unknown quantity at this pointboom_meringue is an unknown quantity at this pointboom_meringue is an unknown quantity at this point
Default Re: Warning If Selling House!

Originally Posted by Titchy
Hello we are about to sell our property (all going well) via Haart estate agents. On signing the contract agreement we were told that commission is based on the price of the property.
Be warned this commission fee is not based as a percentage of the sale price but the original price as advice by Haart ie if they suggest a price of £105K and you sell for £99K or lower as we did the commission fee stays the at the same amount. This was not made clear to us before signing the contract. It is also not clear on the contract.

You could sell a property for £80K or less and still end up paying £2500+ commission - work out the percentage on that!

Selling is therefore a risk with Haart as they have no insentive to sell at the best price as they recieve the highest agreed commission no matter how low the price of your property sells for. Having a fixed fee would benefit the seller if the price of the property increased over the original price but that is rare these days.

If we were informed of this risk by Haart we would have never have agreed to sell with them and would have sought out a seller that charged fees as a percentage of the selling price.

Haart manager claims that they are the only agent that charges a fixed fee in this way, good luck to them!

only accept an offer through that agent if they agree to charge you on the sale price. In practice you can tear up the contract and go to another estate agent without fear of any comeback, we did this with our first estate agent and found out that they will not take any action for fear of negative press.

We were advised by our second agent (we ended up selling with the third) that they would never attempt to pursue a seller that broke the contract as they would lose loads of other customers and potential customers in the fall out.
boom_meringue is offline  
Old May 17th 2005, 1:12 pm
  #3  
Just Joined
Thread Starter
 
Joined: Oct 2004
Posts: 16
Titchy will become famous soon enough
Default Re: Warning If Selling House!

Originally Posted by Steve&Clare
only accept an offer through that agent if they agree to charge you on the sale price. In practice you can tear up the contract and go to another estate agent without fear of any comeback, we did this with our first estate agent and found out that they will not take any action for fear of negative press.

We were advised by our second agent (we ended up selling with the third) that they would never attempt to pursue a seller that broke the contract as they would lose loads of other customers and potential customers in the fall out.
We were under the impression that we were being charged on the final sale price as this is what we were told before signing the contract. If the agent had been clear and honest and told us that the if your sale price decreases our commission percentage increases as is the case here then we would have shown him the door.
Titchy is offline  
Old May 17th 2005, 1:14 pm
  #4  
Just Joined
Thread Starter
 
Joined: Oct 2004
Posts: 16
Titchy will become famous soon enough
Default Re: Warning If Selling House!

Originally Posted by Titchy
We were under the impression that we were being charged on the final sale price as this is what we were told before signing the contract. If the agent had been clear and honest and told us that the if your sale price decreases our commission percentage increases as is the case here then we would have shown him the door.
I hope Haart do lose a heap of customers due to their charging policies and misleading sales agents thus this warning.
Titchy is offline  
Old May 17th 2005, 1:15 pm
  #5  
Crazy Cat Lady
 
moneypenny20's Avatar
 
Joined: Apr 2004
Posts: 65,493
moneypenny20 has a reputation beyond reputemoneypenny20 has a reputation beyond reputemoneypenny20 has a reputation beyond reputemoneypenny20 has a reputation beyond reputemoneypenny20 has a reputation beyond reputemoneypenny20 has a reputation beyond reputemoneypenny20 has a reputation beyond reputemoneypenny20 has a reputation beyond reputemoneypenny20 has a reputation beyond reputemoneypenny20 has a reputation beyond reputemoneypenny20 has a reputation beyond repute
Default Re: Warning If Selling House!

Originally Posted by Titchy
We were under the impression that we were being charged on the final sale price as this is what we were told before signing the contract. If the agent had been clear and honest and told us that the if your sale price decreases our commission percentage increases as is the case here then we would have shown him the door.
I have never heard that! I have always been told that the rate is the proportion of the sale price. Any agent that tries that one should be told where to put their contract. I would go back to them and tear the contract up.
moneypenny20 is offline  
Old May 17th 2005, 1:20 pm
  #6  
Just Joined
Thread Starter
 
Joined: Oct 2004
Posts: 16
Titchy will become famous soon enough
Default Re: Warning If Selling House!

Originally Posted by moneypen20
I have never heard that! I have always been told that the rate is the proportion of the sale price. Any agent that tries that one should be told where to put their contract. I would go back to them and tear the contract up.
Too late, price for sale is already agreed we could refuse to pay but that would result in legal action that we cannot afford.

Apparently due to house prices falling more agents are charging in this way and relying on peoples perception of charges being of a percentage when it is not.
Titchy is offline  
Old May 17th 2005, 1:27 pm
  #7  
 
Joined: Feb 2005
Posts: 151
Shelley29 is an unknown quantity at this point
Default Re: Warning If Selling House!

That is shit. Do you know I am absolutely sick of estate agents. Have been on the market now since beginning of Feb and had 1 viewer. Reduced by £10k and still nothing. They don't seem to give a stuff either. In all fairness to them, they are only gonna charge us .5% of the sale price which is all well and good but where are the f-ing viewers???????

Arranging for another agent to come and value. May as well go with someone else if we are gonna reduce again and pay more in fees.

Sorry to hijack this thread but when I saw the words ESTATE AGENTS it just made my blood boil!!!!

Sorry - rant over - thank you.
Shelley29 is offline  
Old May 17th 2005, 1:27 pm
  #8  
BE Forum Addict
 
Joined: Dec 2003
Location: Adelaide - South Australia
Posts: 1,820
marco121068 has a reputation beyond reputemarco121068 has a reputation beyond reputemarco121068 has a reputation beyond reputemarco121068 has a reputation beyond reputemarco121068 has a reputation beyond reputemarco121068 has a reputation beyond reputemarco121068 has a reputation beyond reputemarco121068 has a reputation beyond reputemarco121068 has a reputation beyond reputemarco121068 has a reputation beyond reputemarco121068 has a reputation beyond repute
Default Re: Warning If Selling House!

Originally Posted by Titchy
Too late, price for sale is already agreed we could refuse to pay but that would result in legal action that we cannot afford.

Apparently due to house prices falling more agents are charging in this way and relying on peoples perception of charges being of a percentage when it is not.
Have you rechecked all the small print? Seems really dodgy to me and could possibly be a case of mis-selling?
marco121068 is offline  
Old May 17th 2005, 1:41 pm
  #9  
Crazy Cat Lady
 
moneypenny20's Avatar
 
Joined: Apr 2004
Posts: 65,493
moneypenny20 has a reputation beyond reputemoneypenny20 has a reputation beyond reputemoneypenny20 has a reputation beyond reputemoneypenny20 has a reputation beyond reputemoneypenny20 has a reputation beyond reputemoneypenny20 has a reputation beyond reputemoneypenny20 has a reputation beyond reputemoneypenny20 has a reputation beyond reputemoneypenny20 has a reputation beyond reputemoneypenny20 has a reputation beyond reputemoneypenny20 has a reputation beyond repute
Default Re: Warning If Selling House!

Originally Posted by Titchy
Too late, price for sale is already agreed we could refuse to pay but that would result in legal action that we cannot afford.

Apparently due to house prices falling more agents are charging in this way and relying on peoples perception of charges being of a percentage when it is not.
Well I would ask my solicitor to check it over. They could have valued it a £500,000 then sold it for less than half that. I can't believe that would even get to court - it's outrageous
moneypenny20 is offline  
Old May 17th 2005, 1:45 pm
  #10  
 
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 2,027
Vanessa is an unknown quantity at this point
Default Re: Warning If Selling House!

I know of Haart and this is their policy. Nothing illegal in it however, if you were misled as to what they were offering (and you won't be the first) they are a member of the ombudsman scheme for estate agents who can be contacted on www.oea.co.uk -
Vanessa is offline  
Old May 17th 2005, 2:16 pm
  #11  
BE Enthusiast
 
Joined: Apr 2005
Location: Gloucester
Posts: 346
boom_meringue is an unknown quantity at this pointboom_meringue is an unknown quantity at this pointboom_meringue is an unknown quantity at this pointboom_meringue is an unknown quantity at this pointboom_meringue is an unknown quantity at this pointboom_meringue is an unknown quantity at this pointboom_meringue is an unknown quantity at this pointboom_meringue is an unknown quantity at this pointboom_meringue is an unknown quantity at this pointboom_meringue is an unknown quantity at this pointboom_meringue is an unknown quantity at this point
Default Re: Warning If Selling House!

Originally Posted by Shelley29
That is shit. Do you know I am absolutely sick of estate agents. Have been on the market now since beginning of Feb and had 1 viewer. Reduced by £10k and still nothing. They don't seem to give a stuff either. In all fairness to them, they are only gonna charge us .5% of the sale price which is all well and good but where are the f-ing viewers???????

Arranging for another agent to come and value. May as well go with someone else if we are gonna reduce again and pay more in fees.

Sorry to hijack this thread but when I saw the words ESTATE AGENTS it just made my blood boil!!!!

Sorry - rant over - thank you.
you get what you pay for, change quickly! It's no great trauma to change agents and you will find that the best ones will not just get people through the door, they will get the right people through the door. We sold within 3 weeks of changing agents
boom_meringue is offline  

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are Off
Pingbacks are Off
Refbacks are Off


Contact Us - Archive - Advertising - Cookie Policy - Privacy Statement - Terms of Service -

Copyright © 2024 MH Sub I, LLC dba Internet Brands. All rights reserved. Use of this site indicates your consent to the Terms of Use.