Hi i was told by a friend who sells houses ..that its a rip off job.. You go to sell your apartment for a quick sale say 50,000.. He says the estate agent puts in up for sale 90,000 .. and if it sells you get 50,000 and the agent keeps 40,000 as you only wanted 50,000..its not the same as in UK were you get the 90,000 less fees...

A lot of owners are now cutting out the middle man and doing the selling themselves..

Does depend on the agent but basically yes here usually about 8% put on top

My worst experience

Owners price €180,000

Agents price €205,000

This was discussed infront of me because the English agent did not realise I understood Spanish

I came across it in TF where dodgy small time agents would take advantage of naive folk back in the UK in a rush to sell, wiith similar or even greater profit margins.
One was an English guy who personally admitted to me that all he needed was a couple of sales a year to make a killing and a good living.

I was told that some 1 bedroom bunglows were selling for 50,000euro.. they needed new wiring and plumbing and the agents were asking 120,000euro ..and i believe this person now..

That's very much how Spanish "agents" have operated in the past and some still do today. However, in the southern part of Cadiz and some of the Costa del Sol most agents will agree a commission on a % basis with the vendor to be deducted from the sale proceeds. Good agents (and there are some!) will often refuse to market a property at an agreed "% commission included" price if they know it is advertised elsewhere at a different price as it only leads to problems.

I have never heard of that!

It could only work if you were a fool. Very few sellers could be that naive. Even if you could read no spanish, one would have to be blind not to see 90,000 euros on the sale document. The owner must sign in front of the notary, unless one is really gullible and gives power of attorney to a crooked solicitor. Every agent I have spoken with works on a percentage of the sale price. A few online agents work on a small up front fee.

The Correadores in the old days mostly worked on that basis. The logic being that if the owner was satisfied with eg. 100,000 and he could con someone into paying 140,000 it was his profit. Some British agents began to do the same particularly in rural areas.

It's ok to say cut out the middleman, we have when buying but when selling never managed to sell any ourselves, even in the boom years. When selling through an Agent we have always kept control of it and paid agreed commission on sale. That doesn't prevent some kitchen sink agents with a website stealing your listing from another agent and upping the price.Have seen porperties of ours for sale on other websites and have never heard of them

yes i believe this still happens in the Canary Isles.. i have seen the same apartment in differant estate agents at differant prices..

I have talked to spanish about this rip off and they say thats the way it is..... you agree a price with the agent say 100,000 and anything he makes over it is his.. i told them the new way is so much % comishion and they laughed.. but them we are over 60 years old its hard to change the old ways.. I hope there is a law for this kind of rip off..

One guy I knew who was at it, had been a solicitor in England and had his various qualifications pinned up on the wall.
He was very convincing and had been entrusted with power of attourney as had another one I knew.
The sellers had left for England ,I don't think ever to return again, so he more or less had a free hand to screw them to his hearts content.
The more I got to know about him, the more suspicious I was that maybe he'd already been struck off in the UK for dodgy practice or some sort wrong doing.

We bought our house here quite a few years ago under this system. The agent and the vendors (an elderly couple with a spare property) sold our house to us for a price 5,000 euros dearer than the actual selling price. At this price the house was still cheaper but in much better condition than others we had seen. We had it checked out with a solicitor and an architect we chose independently and then said we would go ahead.

At the Notary we went into a side room with our solicitor and handed over the cash. He then took our money into another room with the agent and the vendors. The balance between the amount we paid and the actual selling price was split equally between agent and vendors (the solicitor was paid separately).

We then all went into the Notaries actual office and signed the paperwork and the house was ours. Smiles all round.

As Brits buying in Spain during the property boom, we got a bargain even allowing for solicitor and architects fees, the elderly couple got some cash for a house they didn't use, and the agent did okay too. No complaints.

However, we did buy a cheap property where profit margins even under this system were slim. No way would we have purchased a property worth 50,000 for 90,000 or 120,000. But I suppose those who don't know any better will do so.

Yep they have all been at it, oh and the under declaring on top of that. I bet they can't get away with it now, they can't give the houses away.

It was certainly true when we bought.

Although our EA, didn't do this, I know several who did.

We didn't use an EA when we sold.