Sole Agency Agreement? is this required now?

[Trustmeh]

Hi. Its been a while since I tried sell a house. I recall before the BOOM it was a fairly open environment - I could easily list my house with multiple agencies - and freely move my listing based on perceived performance of the agents.

I have now found that each agency I have approached is a little more choosy about my getting to use their services. I recognize that the market has not yet picked up so my house may not be an area they want to focus on, but I would have thought getting a basic service; ie a listing in their premises, a person to answer the phone, maybe a sign on site would be a minimum offering that was easy enough to obtain.

I have been asked to sign a document that effectively serves to be a contract whereby i HAVE to only list the house with a "sole agent" for a specific time frame, (9 months!) and I must pay a minimum fee to advertise online etc. The rights of the seller are few and far between - I must give written notice of cancellation (28 days! notice) ... unless mutually agreed.

Are we going backwards now? Is this normal across all of Ireland? Is something that was formally brought in (as they have told me) and is totally legal? Is this not squashing of competition?

 

[dereko1969]

Do a search on here for the many people who decided not to pay their estate agent because they "sold the house themselves" and see why they've adopted this approach now. They should have done it years ago. As sahd states though tell them you're not going to sign up unless they reduce it to six months.

Obviously if all the EA you're going to have the same stipulation that is where a cartel might be suspected.

 

[Trustmeh]

Several agents said the same when approached, sigh, it is very frustrating. I went ahead anyway and picked one. As usual they started great guns, lots of activity, them zero comms after a while.

As the season draws to a close, we told them we would rent out the place by sept. if no buyer before that. They had the cheek to try and say we cant cuz of the 9 month contract to sell the house!