Last month visited spain for two weeks searching for a country house to renovate.
met a very nice English estate agent who showed us round for three days looking at properties in the alicante area.we saw a place we were quite interested in but had to wait untill our house was sold in uk. since our return we have found the house we liked on the internet with a different estate agent and it is for sale 37000 eur. cheaper than we were told by our very nice estate agent.
The problem is do we as in the uk. have to pay a fee for the first showing of the property to our estate agent.or can we go with the new agency.
The English estate agent lives not to far away in the same village where we saw the house.we would not like to move into the area with any bad feelings.
can anyone advise us

1. No you don't have to pay the first agent.
2. They couldn't have been that nice if they hiked the price up by 37,000€!
3. If you look around you may well find it cheaper with someone else - try all the Spanish agents in the area, they are not as greedy

Estate agents in Spain can be very good. But many are a law to themselves. Some effectively charge any commission they want by agreeing with the vendor /seller a price that they are wanting, then try to get more for themselves by loading that price. So you can find a property being sold by two different agents at two very different prices. :scared: Also it is possible for the price to actually 'move' upwards during the time of your first enquiry to the time of your serious enquiry.

There are some good offers of houses in spanish papers, some spanish people dont use Real Estate agents at all so you often get a house cheaper anyway. The reason why some are more expenisive is the RE fees. They range from 5-12% upwards so thats what added onto the price of the house. I would get hold of some spanish papers and use your translator and have a look there.

Best of luck. Also find a damn good lawyer before you go signing anything or parting with any monies. There are alot of respectable agents but seem to be more that are not, especially expats so be warned, howerver charming they are. They are paid to be charming

Good luck

As a Gestor I would very much agree with Mercedes. There are many excellent offers in the newspapers, this is where most Spanish people find their property. It is also the place where most estate agents find their properties also. Once the agent finds a seller that agrees to let the agent sell their property the agent then adds their commission on top. But €37,000 is excessive.

It appears that anybody coming to Spain over the last few years that can speak Spanish and English have set themselves up as Estate Agents and taken advantage of their fellow expats to launch their business.

Whichever way you go about it, use an independent Lawyer or Gestor to make sure that everything is as it should be and that you are buying the right property at the right price.

As for the question of whether you need to pay the introducing agent any fees that depends on whether you signed a contract, (popular along the coasts) that states that you must pay a commission to the agent for any property shown to you by the agent and later bought by you either through the agent or privately. In practice this type of contract is almost impossible to enforce.

Many estate agents are finding a slow down in the market but this is because prospective purchasers are doing away with their services in order to avoid their sharp practices and extortionate commissions.

Apart from private advertisements in newspapers there are now many web sites on which sellers can advertise their property for sale by paying a small fee with the purchaser being able to contact the seller direct.

Spaniards traditionally do not use lawyers for property conveyancing. It is a bandwagon unintentionally introduced by foreigners upon which many of the Spanish legal profession have jumped. Do not look upon the use of a lawyer as a means of ensuring some kind of guarantee if things go wrong because it isn’t.

Look for someone who knows their way around the system to help you preferably by recommendation from satisfied purchasers.

Another thing you can do is ask directly your estate agent about the reason of finding the same property 37.000 euros cheaper. His/her response can give you a hint of how he does his businesses and most probably he will start to notice that you are not interested in his intermediation.

Regards