Advice on fees payable to estate agents when selling your property yourself

The Office Of Fair Trading has issued guidelines regarding fees payable to sole agents if a vendor sells a property through a property website like Barns Etc.

Sole Selling Rights

If your agent has "sole selling rights" then he is the only person with the right to sell the property for the length of the contract. Even if you found a buyer yourself, commission would still be payable to the agent.

You could still list your property with your agent's contact details to stimulate interest however. They would then carry out estate agent work on your behalf in return for their commission. In this instance a listing with Barns Etc might help secure a sale, but commission would still be payable to your estate agent.

Sole Agency Agreement

If a vendor has a "sole agency" agreement with a high street estate agent, he or she can sell the property himself to a person not introduced by this agent and not have to pay the agent his fee.  This is what is commonly known as a private sale.

However, if the property is sold via another "estate agent", then the vendor would have to pay two sets of fees - one to each estate agent.

The Office Of Fair Trading has discovered that many internet property websites claim not to be estate agents but are, in the OFT's view, doing estate agency work. In effect, they are estate agents.

Hence, a high street agent would be able to claim his fee if a property was sold via such an internet property retailer, but not if sold via a property website like Barns Etc that does not carrying out estate agency work.

Barns Etc does not carry out estate agent work - we simply offer an advertising opportunity for sellers and their agents.

Please be wary of other property listing sites who may contact you after seeing that you have listed with us.  Most do not understand their responsibilities with regards the Estate Agents Act and even a "free listing" on one of these sites might end up costing you thousands in unnecessary fees.

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