Sacking French estate agent, is it possible?

[poshtotty]

Hello everyone. I hope this is the right place to post and that someone may be able to advise us.

We're trying to sell a house and have signed up with a firm of estate agents for an exclusive deal for 3 months, that allows us a reduction in fees if we find a buyer. A few weeks ago when we signed, the agent was talking a good story [don't they all], but five weeks on, we have heard nothing except for a couple of emails with no particular news. We signed the standard FNAIM mandat, which has clauses in it saying that the agent will arrange for the maximum publicity for our property, especially on the FNAIM website. So far, we've seen the details outside the agency and are told that it's on the internet, but are unable to find it under any permutation of the property type, number of rooms, location and price. The agent has told us a couple of times that people are interested and will be making a special trip to come and have a look, but they would need to contact us for viewings because they don't have keys. We are having trouble believing that these people are real now.

The market here is still active, but not with our agent it seems.

I did contact FNAIM, but got a standard email reply that didn't really seem to cover our problem.

We are losing faith and patience in the agent and are fed up with being patronised and possibly being lied to. Can we get out of the agreement early because they haven't kept to their side of the bargain, or do we have to hang on in there until the 3 months are up please? I understand we can become non-exclusive if we send a registered/recorded delivery letter 2 weeks before the end of the exclusive period to tell them this, am I right?

My other question is that having lost confidence in the agency, are we obliged to leave them a set of keys when we come back to the UK? When we leave, there will be about 5 weeks of the exclusive restriction left.

Sorry if these questions sound naive, this is new to us and we would just like to stay out of trouble. If we signed up with the wrong agent, we're prepared to live with it, but consumer protection here doesn't seem as advanced as in the UK.

I would be very grateful for any help or comments [nice ones, even if you think we're idiots] please.

My best, poshtotty

[Chezstevens]

Probably have helped you if you had researched through a forum like this, I see it is your first post, before signing with an estate agent. "Poshtotty" may be your moniker ...

There you go ... Polite

[poshtotty]

[quote user="Chezstevens"]Probably have helped you if you had researched through a forum like this, I see it is your first post, before signing with an estate agent. "Poshtotty" may be your moniker ...

There you go ... Polite[/quote]

You're absolutely right, and thank you for being polite. I broke my own rules and should have done what you say before. This agent sold us the house in the first place a while ago and we had high hopes, but there you go. The agents have all contradicted each other and we got confused. It's the 'brains on the runway' syndrome.

I hope to atone for my lack of research by doing research on the forum here now I've found it, and helping out in the future if I can, over French property and with the language depending on what the query is. I'm not posh, and too old to be totty, but it's a nickname I have :).

My best.

[Quillan]

If you hang around Will might turn up, he has a lot of knowledge about this subject.

[Judie]

The short answer is no, you can't get out of an exclusive contract unless they want to let you go.

However, you could conveniently forget to give them a set of keys and at least that way, you'll be reassured that they are not in your house while you are away.

You are right that you can end the contract with a recorded and signed for letter giving 2 weeks notice to coincide with the end of the exclusive period.

I would suggest that you get at least 2 or 3 other agent lined up for when the 3 months ends so that they are ready to go straightaway. Don't forget though that the date you sign with them must be at the end of your exclusive period with this agent.

[poshtotty]

Thank you Quillan and Judie for the replies.

Judie, that's pretty much what we'd thought about doing, so it's good to know you think the same. As the agent doesn't answer the majority of our emails, I think I'll just keep radio silence for the short time we're still here and then quietly leave with the keys.

And then we can sign with the other agents we've found as of the day after the excusivite expires.

My best, posh.

[woolybanana]

Five weeks is not very long really, is it? Perhaps you might give the agent a little longer, after all, there might simply not be a lot of interest in your type of property. it could take five years to sell after all, or the price may not be right.

[poshtotty]

I agree five weeks isn't very long, but other agents here are pretty busy up to the end of this month, and especially over the public holidays recently. They all tell us our place should sell pretty quickly. But we don't stand any chance of selling if all we have is an A4 notice on the board outside an agency in a holiday resort. As I think I said, the agent committed to carry out maximum publicity and especially the FNAIM website, and we can't find the property advertised anywhere at the moment.

We shall do what Judie suggested and then go over to a mandat simple with this agent and the others, once the exclusivite runs out.

Thank you, posh

[P-D de Rouffignac]

I agree with woolybanana that you are perhaps expecting too quick a result after only a few weeks, particularly as the property market is notoriously quiet from about November to mid-January, due partly to people concentrating on Christmas and New Year.

Two friends locally each had a property on the market since August, nothing happened for weeks, until last Monday - and totally coincidently - both receive offers within an hour of each other, one via an agent, the other privately. So you never know.

Returning to England without leaving a set of keys with your chosen agent might result in the agent being unable to show the property to a client in your absence, and hence putting you in breach of contract. The mandate is a two-way contract - the agency agrees to apply their best efforts, you cannot on your side obstruct them in trying to do their job. Best to wait and see, and decide at the end of three months.

P-D de R.

[mint]

P-D, you are so sensible in what you say.  I mean, a few weeks is nothing, even in a good market.  If I sold mine in under a year, I'd be mighty pleased.

[just john]

[quote user="poshtotty"]  agents here are pretty busy up to the end of this month, and especially over the public holidays recently. They all tell us our place should sell pretty quickly. [/quote]

Isn't this standard Agent speak for let me earn the commission on your property?

Did the other agents also tell you we could probably get more if you put it with us?

[Will]

Thanks Quillan, but Judie (Mrs W) having been an agent in France for several years has the first-hand knowledge that I don't so I go along with her reply.

The French market is slow, even in good times it's not unusual for a house to remain on sale for a years or so. But there has to be a reason for getting little or no interest in your house. The usual reason is that the price appears high which puts potential buyers off - some agents will give over-optimistic valuations in order to get an exclusive deal. If you are happy that the asking price is fair, then you probably do have a lazy agent, and if he/she is unwilling to let you out of the exclusivity contract then I would think the best thing you can do is keep badgering the agent so that clients do get shown the house.

For what it's worth Judie would never accept exclusive contracts and advised sellers to use several agents, and, if they didn't mind dealing direct with the general public, to advertise privately as well, in order to maximise the exposure and increase the chance of making a sale.

[Patf]

When we had our house up for sale last year, with 4 different agents, we found that the one with the best website got the most interest and viewings.

We gave them all a disc with photos, so they all had the same material, but 3 of the 4 websites were very poor.

[bubbles]

We too stupidly signed an exclusive contract with an agent - and ours was for 6 months!

during that time he showed our house to precisely nobody!!!

how useless is that.

added to that he was very slow to reply to our emails.

we couldn't wait for the 6 months to end and had three agents signed up as soon as we were free of them.

what we didn't realise until told by one of the new agents was that our exclusive 6 month contract would just continue even after the 6 months was up unless we wrote a cancellation letter. In fact it would have gone on for ever apparently!!!!!!!

And, the useless agent still hasn't replied to our email of 6 weeks ago asking how we could best get our keys back from him.

[Quillan]

If you think 5 weeks is a long time to get a viewing then drop the price, price it to sell quick. Don't forget some houses in France can take a year (or more) to sell so I don't think 5 weeks is very long. You also need to think about where you are selling it, I wouldn't use an agent round here to sell my place because only local people will look and quite frankly they can't afford it. You need to be on websites in Paris and also other countries (like Belgium or Holland and of course the UK) if you want big bucks. I know one couple who don't have an exclusive contract, they have had one viewing in 4 months. The real reason they have so few viewings is because they are asking too much for the place but they won't hear of it, they say they are asking the market value. I wouldn't say theirs is expensive but if I used the same logic as them I would be looking for 1.5M Euros for mine and quite frankly I have more chance of finding rocking horse sh*t outside my front door.

[PaulT]

We were fortunate and bought when you got a lot of euros for a pound. We may have even paid over the odds for our house.

If we were looking now we would most certainly be converting euros to pounds and seeing that at some of the asking prices a great many pounds would be required. Therefore, to get a sale would require the price being dropped considerably.

When we were looking we went out throughout the year but many people view house hunting as a spring / summer hobby so you now have a much smaller number of people who will view at this time of year.

And yes, the difference between how agents advertise on the net is amazing. Some just one non-descript photo. The best site we found operated in a number of countries and had submissions from a large number of agents. Most of these had a large number of photos giving a better impression of the houses.

My other impression was that the photographers were masters - not even Rolf Harris would have seen what some of the places were!

Paul

[poshtotty]

Hello again. I have another query now and have searched these forums and online, but can't find very much about it and I'm not sure why.

The agent is saying that we need to have expertises done before the 1st January because of a new law came into effect recently. We knew they would have to be done, but don't understand if it should be as the house goes on the market or when there's an offer, say. I've read that some of them expire after a few months.

Also, if we move to a mandat simply at the end of our exclusivity, some of the other agents include expertises in the fees, so this could end up being a duplication.

Does anyone know if this is right please, because the agent is pushing us to do the expertises now.

Thank you for any help.

My best, posh

[just john]

I have to say I don't know, but earlier this year my plumbiere was trying to tell me (I wasn't listening because I'm not selling) that the expertises were going to become more wide ranging next year, I think to include gas & electricity, so maybe by doing it now you won't need the more inclusive test, thereby avoiding finding problems?

[pachapapa]

[quote user="just john "]I have to say I don't know, but earlier this year my plumbiere was trying to tell me (I wasn't listening because I'm not selling) that the expertises were going to become more wide ranging next year, I think to include gas & electricity, so maybe by doing it now you won't need the more inclusive test, thereby avoiding finding problems?[/quote]

Your plombier or plombieresse reminds me of a recent thread.[;-)]

05/11/2010, 23:00
pachapapa Joined on 02/06/2008 Posts 1,941	Re: New French order NOR : DEVO0809422A , micro station d'epuration.
	OK!Found the relevant link to the change in the Public Health Code; it is 1st January 2011. SPANC report valid for 3 years and cost paid by the vendor. http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichCodeArticle.do;jsessionid=8346B9F0EF12E82E22C26AA6DF477416.tpdjo13v_1?idArticle=LEGIARTI000022496485&cidTexte=LEGITEXT000006072665&dateTexte=20110101

[Lou]

It's the DPE - the energy efficiency report which is affected by the 1st Jan 2011 law. Any advert - by an agency or a private individual - will have to list the energy rating on it.

Also, you can't/won't gain anything by having your exeprtises done "early" as it's the date of the final "acte authentique" which determines which expertises are needed - if your signing is after the date a new law comes in, you're affected and have to comply.

Lou

[just john]

Interesting, tell me more, how is this tested in France?

 

[Will]

I would imagine much the same way as in the rest of Europe, the house is visited by a surveyor who makes an assessment of the energy efficiency of the building. This tells you about the UK one; the French one is very similar.

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/HomeAndCommunity/BuyingAndSellingYourHome/Energyperformancecertificates/DG_177026

[Richard51]

I've just finished a translation of the rules for our local estate agent.  If anyone wants a copy, pm me.

Mrs R51

[just john]

So do they measure insulation values?, how would they know in an old building if a new floor has been laid with underfloor insulation or a hidden eco100m foam insulated roof sub structure?

[Richard51]

The rules I was given don't go into the technical assessments just the legal requirements.  If they are anything like the UK, then they will be another useless way of parting the home owner from his cash...viz a load of b*ll***s.  Most people buying an older, character property know it will be less energy efficient than the box like, modern alternative, but...they don't care.

Mrs R51