Estate agent being cheeky, am I wrong?

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Trying to sell a house, didn't sell after 6 months so we decided to move agents. The first ones were ok, tough place to sell but I felt they weren't really enthusiastic about the property so went to someone else. I gave the required 2 weeks notice and moved agents, he wasn't happy but there you go.

I get an invoice a week later for £300 for marketing costs which was a surprise, upon querying the unexpected bill the agent says it was in the contract and pay up. I genuinely hadn't seen a contract and certainly didn't sign one but it does say if we withdraw the property from sale we have to pay £250+vat.

I am minded to tell them to get lost as I didn't agree that term but am wary of being someone who doesn't pay their bills. I think the term is unfair, if we messed the agent around I would agree to paying their costs but they had 6 months go at earning the full commission.

What do you think? Pay the full amount? Offer a reduced amount? Ask them to pay my invoice for £300 for non-selling of the house after 6 months(about as valid a contract as their retrospective one I guess) first? Tell them to go away?

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The Moose said:

Did they send it to you and you didn’t sign it but didn’t tell them you don’t agree to it?

Assuming the first time you saw that contract was when you were pulling out, I would be pushing them to provide either a copy with your signature on it or proof they’d sent it via email before you proceeded with the instruction.

What I would do would depend on what comes back...

I genuinely didn't see it beforehand or when pulling out, only when I got the invoice for money. They sent me an email copy of the contract when I disputed it, obviously my signature wasn't on it as I had never seen it before.

They said they have a record in their post book of them sending it to me and that I implied signing it by letting them sell the property.

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p1stonhead said:

But it sort of works both ways if you didnt follow up on terms - what terms did you think they were appointed under?

Fairly similar to the one I just signed with the other agent, nothing up front but 1%+vat selling fee. I had Savills round too but they wanted around £600 up front for brochures and weren't flexible about showing people around the house. I do read contracts if they are sent to me.

I just feel a bit like a bad client if I don't pay but I also don't like them pulling fast ones on me with unclear charges.

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brrapp said:

Does this newly appeared 'contract' say anything about timescale? Or if the house still isn't sold after say 20 years are you still tied to them?

Nothing about timescale so yes if they didn't sell it for 20 years then you still have to pay I guess. I could understand a fee to stop timewasters but 6 months seems like a decent crack of the whip to me.

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AyBee said:

How did you know they required 2 weeks' notice if you didn't have a contract?

Alright Clouseau

When I called up to say I was moving agents he said ok 2 more weeks notice then we can go, it was news to me but not a big deal.

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bad company said:

You can enter into a verbal contract. Mind you the op said he hasn’t.

Not quite, I suppose I did enter into a verbal contract as we discussed that I give them selling fees of 1%+vat, he also said that we could leave at any time. What he didn't say was the leaving costs which is my issue, if he had I would have gone with another agent on a no-sell no-fee basis. I don't know whether it was due to incompetence or less than perfect transparency.

I am now minded to just pay up even though I think their business practices are absolutely awful, events like this just make me think the whole estate agent game is full of chancers.