Selling your home privately in the UK

Is it not a legal agreement between them ? Derek.

Yes all agents I know now have legal agreements. Many only in the recent years (used to be a handshake) as they are so fed up with folks trying to bypass them and cut out their fees. It is a lot more rife in some parts of the country than others. Ken

You can't blame people for bypassing agents, I agree that it is a little underhand for the seller to entertain offers made to them directly by the seller, but as you say the agents use legal agreements to protect themselves in these circumstances.

It becomes a little ambigous when trying to prove that such an offer is as a direct result of the agent's advertising. I think this must happen a lot and I wonder how many agents have taken legal action against the vendor when they have cut them out in favour of a direct offer??

Sorry but I am boringly old fashioned in that if I sign an agreement I stick to it and so expect others to do the same. All trades have their 'payment dodgers'. In recent weeks a taxi driver told me he had regularly runners who didn't pay. Only an odd tenner a couple of times each week and he seemed resigned to it. One small hotel I use say they have number of people every year that disappear without having paid. My local paper weekly reports 'drive offs' from garages where people have filled up with 50 of petrol. Even someone I know who runs a Fish & Chip shop says the odd people run off but he is well over 6 feet ex marine, young and he 'always gets his man'. Just makes them pay of course. If too many people did 'none paying' it would impact on the rest of us by pushing prices up. In the same way that there are many with cash businesses who seem to think it is OK to siphon off thus leaving the rest of us to pay higher taxes as a result.

With Estate Agents some have a policy of never chasing debts through the courts because of concern over their image. Others pursue every debt and it is surprising what services are on offer to trace absconders. Most agents worry where people sell to move overseas as in these case there is statically a higher ratio of none payers. As I have said before I deal with quite a few agents and those who go to court over debts usually win the case - I would say virtually every time. But whether they get the money is a different story!

Ken