Estate Agency contract?? Avoided and now chasing me

[losingwilltolive]

Hello,

As some you are aware repo order granted on my house in May-- anyway avoided actual eviction by mananging to get rid of property ( well under value)-

However- I have to confess to doing something a little naughty-

The Estate agent did very little( my opinion)- he only seemed interested in me lowering price further--

In the end i privately negotiated with someone the agent had introduced 6 weeks before-

This obviously saved me a few thousand in fees and as i'd heavily lost out on forced sale anyway i wasn't bothered at all about bypassing the agent.

However,it is not a matter oftime before i get a summons from the estate agent as they have been calling me non-stop-At the end of the day their very poor.non-existent service is probably not a good enough reason for me bypassing them but i cannot now pay them anything so will have to defend any action-

If anyone has been in similar situation it'd be good to get a heads up on things to come

[spamheed]

Hello,

As some you are aware repo order granted on my house in May-- anyway avoided actual eviction by mananging to get rid of property ( well under value)-

However- I have to confess to doing something a little naughty-

The Estate agent did very little( my opinion)- he only seemed interested in me lowering price further--

In the end i privately negotiated with someone the agent had introduced 6 weeks before-

This obviously saved me a few thousand in fees and as i'd heavily lost out on forced sale anyway i wasn't bothered at all about bypassing the agent.

However,it is not a matter oftime before i get a summons from the estate agent as they have been calling me non-stop-At the end of the day their very poor.non-existent service is probably not a good enough reason for me bypassing them but i cannot now pay them anything so will have to defend any action-

If anyone has been in similar situation it'd be good to get a heads up on things to come

 

 

What are they actually pursuing you for?

Have they actually made a court claim against you?

what are the POC?

[losingwilltolive]

Hi,

Basically they are saying that as it was technically a buyer they had previously introduced they are now after their full 1.75%+VAT commission

 

No 'official ' claim made yet

 

sorry to be a little thick but not sure what POC means

[IdaInFife]

I have read another thread on the same thing. If i find it i'll post it up but from what i can remember the acutally went to court and the agents won, i'm afraid

 

 

Ida x

[losingwilltolive]

Tha'd be great- i will have to put up some sort of a defence as do not have any money to pay them and also it does seem a lot to pay out for hardly any service in return

[spamheed]

No such thing as a stupid question

 

POC = Particulars of Claim, what they would put on the court papers should they take it through the courts.

 

Did you dispute the quality of their service, or their fees prior to the sale of the house?

 

Did you terminate the agreement with them prior to the sale of the property?

[losingwilltolive]

agents have just left message -stating that if i don't call then they will employ debt collectors to collect this!!

[spamheed]

I wouldn't worry too much about a Debt Collector, if the debt is enforceable they can only take you to court and make you pay installments based on what you can reasonably afford.

 

Just to reiterate the previous questions.

 

Did you dispute the quality of their service, or their fees prior to the sale of the house?

 

Did you terminate the agreement with them prior to the sale of the property?

[losingwilltolive]

Thanks- In answer to the questions:

 

verbally i did tell them that i wasn't happy that all they seemed to be interested in was securing any old price just to secure their commision

 

the tie-in period came to an end after 16weeks and then i terminated-but sold house a week after with private negotiation between me & buyer...

so legally ,i am screwed as their contract stipulated that if house sold after contract to someone they had previously introduced then liable for fee...problem is we don't have it!!

[spamheed]

At the end of the day, the very worst case scenario is:

 

If they take you to court and win, then a judge would set a repayment plan that you can reasonably afford.

 

Unfortunately verbal communications are difficult to confirm, it proves the point of ensuring all communications should be made in writing.

 

I would suggest that if the contract with the estate agents ran to its conclusion, then as you say, there is little you can do.

 

However, if you terminated the agreement early due to the quality of their service, then any clause held in the agreement would also be null and void