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

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

I still think that you owe him 0 as you have no contract with him
 
Re: Bought new house & seller accepted old hse in part payment. Sellers EA claims 1.5

Say House A (your new house) was €1,000,000 and House B (your old house) was €500,000. To the best of your knowledge, did this EA get (say) 1.5% of €1M or the €500K? If it was the former, he's already been paid. If it's the latter then (perhaps) somebody does owe him money. But that somebody isn't you. Ensure your solicitor knows this clown shouldn't be paid. And then let the EA know you're going to report him to the IAVI and possibly take action against him. My experience of EA's is of a "profession" filled with spivs, liars, bluffers and cheats. Right now the world's smallest violin is playing for the EA's as one by one they go bust...karma can be a wonderful thing and every cloud does indeed have a silver lining. In the case of our recession, it's watching those who screwed us during the boom (EA's, tradesmen, bankers etc) going off a cliff.
 
Re: Bought new house & seller accepted old hse in part payment. Sellers EA claims 1.5

This story has changed and twice now you've said you expected to pay a fee. Why did you think you should pay a fee?

He found you a buyer for your house and I think he is entitled to a fee for that. Otherwide you would not have sold your house.

Your only issue seems to be that you don't want to pay him the fee he is asking as you think it it too much.
 
Re: Bought new house & seller accepted old hse in part payment. Sellers EA claims 1.5


Strictly speaking its not "a" transaction, but two transactions, involving the same parties. THe IAVI restriction above refers to an EA acting for the buyer and the seller of a property, ie getting a fee from the buyer for finding or negotiating the purchase, and also getting a fee for negotiating the sale for the vendor. This doesn't really apply to you.

Did the EA act in the negitiation with the purchaser of your house? ie did he act to determine the value of your property that would be set against the purchase and agree this with the purchaser?

If so, then he's probably entitled to a fee. If he merely suggested that maybe the other party would consider your home in part payment then he's probably not. But from your posts above it sounds like he did more than make the suggestion.

There's no requirement for a signed contract either, if you dealt with the EA when he negotiated the swap (to agree on values etc.) then you were implicitly authorising him to do the deal.
 
Re: Bought new house & seller accepted old hse in part payment. Sellers EA claims 1.5

Bronte, the story hasn't changed at all. I said I expected to receive some kind of bill from him as during negotiations he would say "I'm on your side as well"....which lead me to believe he would send us a bill. We, however, never felt he was on our side as he put it. He didn't suggest the vendor may accept our house as payment he told us he would, but how would we even know if it was his suggestion or the vendors own idea??? Its very murky I admit.
During negotiations over money we very much felt it was him representing the vendor and us representing ourself. The way negotiations went was the vendor wanted our house plus x amount, so x was the figure to be negotiated. He didn't put a value on our house , we did that directly with the vendor for our mortgage purposes.
If he had sent us a reasonable bill in the proper manner we would have paid him, I have never not paid a bill and I don't like having enemies. However, he sent a bill through the vendors solicitor, who then passed it on to our solicitor. Was he perhaps thinking our solicitor might settle up before we even saw he bill?? It was the first our solicitor had heard from him, she has not one document from him relating to his claimed selling our property. He did not try to negotiate his fee with us after sending us the bill even though we told him to his face we were not happy with it, he went straight ahead and sent us a solicitors letter.
So, back to my original question should I offer him something or let the courts decide???
 
Re: Bought new house & seller accepted old hse in part payment. Sellers EA claims 1.5


Just a few quick notes, he wouldn't have expected your solicitor to pay without notifying you as this doesn't happen. The reason the negotiations felt like they were going against you is that you were on board first, the other party needed to be made happy to make the overall deal go through.
If you don't know whose suggestion it was you can simply ask the other vendor.
You can only make this decision yourself as it boils down to your personal interaction with the EA. I would be reluctant to pay tbh.
 
Re: Bought new house & seller accepted old hse in part payment. Sellers EA claims 1.5

Hi,

just read this thread and thought I reply because my initial reaction to the EA's bill was: "How dares he to send you a bill". Now, that I read on I am not entirely sure if I understood everything.

The EA had a contract with the other vendor for selling the house that you bought, right?
Now, instead of handing over the entire selling price of the house, you agreed a deal in which you gave the sum "x" plus your house for the sum "y". Now, is it in the slightest possible, that the EA was only paid his fee on the sum "x" and now is trying to get you to pay his fee on the sum "y"? Mainly because I am guessing that the other vendor doesn't think it is his business to pay for a sum he didn't get in cash - and moreover that you - as a vendor of your old house - benefited from the whole deal as well?

If I was in your shoes I would ask a solicitor about this situation and if you are obliged to pay the EA the difference in his fee. It is all a bit confusing alright.

Good luck,

best regards

Jeanie
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Re: Bought new house & seller accepted old hse in part payment. Sellers EA claims 1.5

Just ignore the EA.

It is as simple as no contract no fee. If you didn't engage the agent to provide you with agency services then you can't be charged for same. It matters not how enthusiastic the agent was in sealing this deal, nor what he or she thought.
 
Re: Bought new house & seller accepted old hse in part payment. Sellers EA claims 1.5

Jeanie,

I don't know what he was paid by the vendor but he has never mentioned not receiving his full fee from the vendor.
He is charging us 1.5% of what he thinks was the value of our house in the transaction. He has even got that wrong, valuing it at 20k less than we agreed with the vendor.
 
Re: Bought new house & seller accepted old hse in part payment. Sellers EA claims 1.5


It could just as easily be said that the vendor paid 20k over market value. Speak to your solicitor to confirm your position, that should solve everything.
 
Re: Bought new house & seller accepted old hse in part payment. Sellers EA claims 1.5

Offer him €1000 "in good faith" as you believe you never had a contract with him. Also explain that if he doesn't accept the €1000, you'll be getting your solicitor on the case to explain to him that there was no contract between you and him, and as such he'll receive no moneys.
 
Re: Bought new house & seller accepted old hse in part payment. Sellers EA claims 1.5

Soarer said:
Offer him €1000 "in good faith"
Click to expand...

This is mad. In good faith if you wish give €1000 to Focus Ireland or the Vincent de Paul. Doing this would be Good Faith. There was no binding contract with the EA so why bother. Where has anyone heard of an EA that gave money in Good faith to anybody.
 
Re: Bought new house & seller accepted old hse in part payment. Sellers EA claims 1.5

Well the OP expected to have to pay some fee, but not the 1.5% the EA is looking for.

So for "some fee" read €1000.
 
Re: Bought new house & seller accepted old hse in part payment. Sellers EA claims 1.5

Yeah, and give the fee to a deserving cause.
 
Re: Bought new house & seller accepted old hse in part payment. Sellers EA claims 1.5

Just tell him to go away and then forget about him. You have no liability.
 
Re: Bought new house & seller accepted old hse in part payment. Sellers EA claims 1.5

Thanks for all the advice.
Solicitors letters have already passed between the 2 parties at this stage. We explained our position through our solicitor and got another letter back from his solicitor saying he is awaiting confirmation that we are going to pay up! My solicitor is away at the moment so we haven't replied yet.
He is claiming in the latest letter that when we viewed the house and mentioned to him we hadn't sold your old house that he told us he may be able to find us a buyer. That is a lie. He called us after the viewing and told us the vendor was interested in our house if we were interested in his. We then met with the vendor but our good friend EA came along too. Looking back, at this stage we should have said hey what are you doing here? But naievely we didn't. Only after we had sorted out the deal with the vendor did he start dropping comments like I'm on your side as well etc. To be honest it would gall me to pay him €1000 for doing sweet **** all. I have to do a fair bit of work myself to get €1000 not to be handing it over to someone who saw an oppertunity and deceided to milk it!
 
Re: Bought new house & seller accepted old hse in part payment. Sellers EA claims 1.5


What is the difference between the two scenarios above?
 
Re: Bought new house & seller accepted old hse in part payment. Sellers EA claims 1.5

In the letter he is saying that when we told him we had to sell our house before buying he told us that he may be able to find a buyer and that we then retained him as our agent.

What actually happened is he said nothing when we said we had to sell our house and appeared a bit ****ed off tbh as he knew we were not going to buy the house he was showing us. He then rang us back to say seller interested.
I think there is a big difference in those 2 scenarios.
 
Re: Bought new house & seller accepted old hse in part payment. Sellers EA claims 1.5

What did your solicitor advise before he went away?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register