Bought new house & seller accepted old hse in part payment. Sellers EA claims 1.5%!

L

lilylilo

Registered User
Messages
10
Hi all,

Jus looking for some opinions....

We recently bought a new house and the seller accepted our old house in part payment. The auctioneer of the new house is now claiming he also sold our previous house and sent us a sneaky bill via the sellers solicitor for 1.5% of the value of our old house. Incidently, he got the value wrong as he never valued it.

We have refused to pay him and he is now threatening to issue proceedings against us.

What should we do?? Offer him something or let him bring us to court. Have no intention of paying him what he is looking for as he never even saw our old house before seller of the new house agreed to the swap. Seller of the new house had origially built the old house too so he knew the property.
What do ye think?
 
Re: Auctioneer

If you never contracted him to work on your behalf and never signed terms for him to act on your behalf, then he has no contract with you. Is he a member of the IAVI or other organisation. Think about counter suing him etc/for distress
 
Re: Auctioneer

Ask him for a copy of the contract you signed when you engaged him to sell your house ...

... then wonder out loud as to what agency/ombudsman you'll have to refer to, as your humble personal belief is that this is an attempted fraud ...
 
Re: Auctioneer

Just read your Post again. The seller of your new house owes him money if anybody does, not you. If you are certain that that the facts are as you stated make sure you advice your solicitor,in writing, not to pay the EA fees. So anybody that sends you an Invoice you are going to pay. Great, I sold your house ! What's your new address ? My fees are now 4% as things are fairly quiet at the moment.
 
Re: Auctioneer

I think the auctioneer is chancing his arm to see if you are green enough to pay...

Ensure that you never signed anything with the seller or him. If you have nothing signed then he cannot look for payment from you...Also as per Mercman response...ensure you write to your solicitor on this and ensure he doesnt pay the EA
 
Re: Auctioneer

Thanks for the replies....good to know my own thinking is on the same track as others. Solicitor did not pay him, all invoices etc sorted out ages ago. He has been paid by the seller of your new home so I reckon that was enough for him!! We never signed or even agreed anything with him regarding selling our previous house but he is making out he told us he could possibly find a seller (a lie) and we agreed for him to act as our agent (more lies). I like the counter suing idea a lot.....mmm
 
Re: Auctioneer

And did you know there are many out there who state that the EA industry does not need an overhaul !!
 
Re: Auctioneer

Lilylilo that is absolutly dreadful behavious by the auctioneer. I would report him to his professional body if he has one.
 
Re: Auctioneer

mercman said:
And did you know there are many out there who state that the EA industry does not need an overhaul !!
Click to expand...

Did you know that some out there even liken EA's to Nazi's so it's hard to take everything you read seriously.
 
Re: Auctioneer

MrMan said:
Did you know that some out there even liken EA's to Nazi's so it's hard to take everything you read seriously.
Click to expand...

It's all down to trust, and disregard yourself for a second and my post on another thread. Would you place your trust with an EA or more importantly would you refer others members of the Public to EAs in general as trustworthy individuals ?
 
Re: Auctioneer

mercman said:
It's all down to trust, and disregard yourself for a second and my post on another thread. Would you place your trust with an EA or more importantly would you refer others members of the Public to EAs in general as trustworthy individuals ?
Click to expand...

We've been there. Its real simple. If you are selling a property, you have a choice, you sell it yourself or you use an Estate Agent. I deal with Estate Agents all the time. I am happy to deal with most of them. I would recommend my clients to most of them. Its a matter of choice.

When you are buying a property, the chances are you will be dealing with an Estate Agent.
You have a choice. You either accept that they are doing a job - for their clients, the vendors - and you educate yourself sufficiently to recognise you are involved in a commercial transaction and offer what you are willing to pay OR you treat them as the scum of the earth and run the risk of losing the property you want to buy.

Purchasers can be malicious, devious, stupid and ignorant as well you know.

And in the current market, a good Estate Agent is not going to run the risk of losing a potential purchaser by manufacturing bids.

I think you should leave it at that.

mf
 
Re: Auctioneer

emm..hello, my op had nothing to do with manufacturing bids. This thread was not supposed to be about slating EA's , just looking for opinions on an individual situation.

I did expect that he was going to send an invoice for some amount and if it was resonable we would have paid him just for an easy life. But he sent us an invoice for 1.5% of the value of our previous house which we felt was way off the mark and he also sent it in a sneaky way, not directly to us.

As far as I know EA's should agree a fee with clients before sending an invoice and we never considered ourselves his clients, we even asked another EA to value our previous property for mortgage purposes.
 
Re: Auctioneer

mercman said:
It's all down to trust, and disregard yourself for a second and my post on another thread. Would you place your trust with an EA or more importantly would you refer others members of the Public to EAs in general as trustworthy individuals ?
Click to expand...

I would have no problem referring people to EA's that i know just as i would tell them to avoid others. This is much the same if you substitute EA for any other profession though.

With regard to the OP, if he had absolutley nothing to do with the house in question then he cannot expect any payment. I would tell him outright in a straight and clear manner. I cannot understand how he could have this notion if he had absolutley no input in that end of the sale.
 
Re: Bought new house & seller accepted old hse in part payment. Sellers EA claims 1.5

Well he is saying he introduced the buyer of our old house!
 
Re: Auctioneer

lilylilo said:
I did expect that he was going to send an invoice for some amount and if it was resonable we would have paid him just for an easy life. But he sent us an invoice for 1.5% of the value of our previous house which we felt was way off the mark and he also sent it in a sneaky way, not directly to us.
Click to expand...

That suggests to me that you had made some form of an arrangement with him as you were prepared to pay him? Perhaps you might clarify what exactly happened?
 
Re: Bought new house & seller accepted old hse in part payment. Sellers EA claims 1.5

Basically we went to view a house and told EA showing us the house that we liked the house but were not in a position to but a house yet as we had to sell our current property. He made no comment. A few hours later he called us to say the seller of the house we had viewed was interested in our property if we were interested in his. The seller knew the property we were selling as it turns out he had built it. He came to see the property a few days later and we showed him around.

The EA is now saying that when we viewed the property he told us it was possible he could find a buyer for our house and we agreed to retain his services. That is a lie.
 
Re: Bought new house & seller accepted old hse in part payment. Sellers EA claims 1.5

Is he charging the purchaser a finder's fee ?
 
Re: Bought new house & seller accepted old hse in part payment. Sellers EA claims 1.5

Well it does sound like he is due some payment because without his input it is very unlikely that the sale of your house with the current buyer would be going through.
 
Re: Bought new house & seller accepted old hse in part payment. Sellers EA claims 1.5

Yes its true if we never met him we would not have sold our house but then again he would not have sold the other house on behalf of his client.
How do we know that it was him who suggested buying our house to the owner of the other house?? It could have been the owners idea and the EA saw an oppertunity to make some extra money. He got paid for selling one house which would not have happened if the exchange of houses did not happen. We did expect to get a bill from him but not a bill of 1.5%.
IAVI guidelines state EA should not act on 2 sides of a transaction without written consent from both parties. That did not happen. Why did he not ask us to sign contract if he thinks we retained his services? Because he knew we would not, that would have been like shutting the door after the horse bolted.
 
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