Letting Agent - Restricting Selling

[Surrey]

Machs du nicht English verstehen?
Ne comprends toi Anglais?

Might've been funny if it'd used correct grammar and spelling, paul_f may I humbly suggest refreshers in basic French and German!

[FRESH]

Machs du nicht English verstehen?
Ne comprends toi Anglais?

On the wrong site lol

[PaulF]

Machs du nicht English verstehen?
Ne comprends toi Anglais?

[FRESH]

Hi Paul,

Thanks for the refresher!

So as I understand it, the agent has to take out a separate contract with me, if they want to claim 1% of the sale price for providing a tenant who wants to buy my property?

FRESH

[PaulF]

Yes! It's me who posted on this but as it's some time ago I will give you a refresher as it does no harm.

• A contract with your agent to let the property cannot include anything concerning its subsequent sale as it comes under the Estate Agents Act 1979 and is beyond their remit as a completely different, and separate, contract is required.
• Subsequent legislation in 1991 under the Provision of Information Regulations stated that any agent must furnish an owner with their terms of business concerning the sale at the time of the sale instruction - as you have only just decided to sell then your letting agent can't impose anything of the sort upon you, and you are free to chose another agent.
• Any such terms is a potential unfair term within the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contract Regulations guidelines.
• This type of term is common within letting agreements but these agents are so behind on legal stuff because they don't undertake training seriously enough to improve their knowledge.

[FRESH]

Hi Stel,

Thanks for your reply. I now understand if you are selling a property, as a Landlord then the agent cannot enforce the above rule in a contract.

Question: I expect the above would not apply to a tenant provided by the agent, who wishes to buy your property?

Thanks

[Stel]

I think you will find that since previous postings on this subject point out that even if the agent has such a clause in the agreement that it would be seen as an unfair term and therefore unenforcable.

[FRESH]

Read Contract

Hi,

Like all contracts if you have read it through and it is stated then it's legal, if you have signed. As mentioned in the previous post when the term expires then you’re free? Depending that there are no other clauses in the contract.

Some agent's charge 1% of the sale price, if you sell to a tenant who they provided.

If you have a long term to run on the contract, maybe you could negotiate with the agent a buy out price, to end the contract?

And add or deduct it from the house price.

JUST MY VIEWS!

[MrShed]

Is it in the T&Cs? Have you checked?I would suspect you are right that the letting agreement will have ended by the time you sell, so won't matter anyway.

[JPW]

Hi All,

I urgently need some good advice. We have a rental property which has been managed by a letting agent for the past 18 months. Recently our tennant served notice - due to end in early December. As a result we asked our letting agent to give us a sale valuation. The result was less than expected so we spoke to competing agents, that offered better rates and better valuation, one of those has managed to find a buyer, before marketing the property - at asking price.

We've let the letting agent know that an offer has been made, and they are now telling us that we are not alowed to sell our house via another agent whilst we have a letting contract with them. They claim this is in the T&C's of our contract.

Does anyone know if this is legal? It seems rediculous that we cannot sell our own property via another agent - particuarly when the letting agent has never been invited to represent us for sale?

Equally as the sale itself wont complete until after the termination of the letting agreement - do they have a leg to stand on?

Any help gratefully recieved!