sued by property agent due to pull out last minute‏

I'm selling property through rent to own scheme (vendor finance).
it will be rented for 3 years and the renter has the rights to buy on agreed price.

In the beginning I deal with Agent A with exclusive authority written agreement.
after months Agent A unable to sell, then I approached Agent B.
from the very beginning I told Agent B that I have exclusive authority with Agent A.
He said there is no law in Victoria force you to sell to one agent.
Then I go ahead with Agent B with verbal agreement "whoever gets full deposit first, gets it"

situation at that time.
Agent A doesn't know anything about Agent B.
whereas Agent B knows about Agent A

on 13-Sep-2013 I got confirmation from Agent A that he has sold the property and waiting for deposit to be transferred $20,000.
I didn't tell anything to Agent B about this progress.
on 23-Sep-2013 I got confirmation from Agent B he has a buyer ready to proceed asking me to proceed.
Agent's B told me he got small deposit from client.

on 26-Sep-2013, Agent B got the agreement letter ready and I have appointment to meet him in the evening at 6pm to sign it.
all of the sudden Agent A called me at 4pm that he had got the deposit $20,000 in his trustee account.
It is a very hard decision to make. I choose to go with Agent A and tell Agent B the news.
I paid $1,200 to Agent B to reimburse legal paperwork paid to his lawyer.

on 27-Sep-2013 I signed contract of sale with Agent A.

Agent B was very upset and telling to his buyer about my decision not to go ahead with him.
on 28-Sep-2013 I got an email from Agent B asking me to pay compensation damaged as following:
- $3,000 for all his hardwork finding a buyer in the past 3 weeks.
- $7,800 for his client, because the client already terminated the current rent.

I offer Agent B $1,000 for his work, he refused and replied he would go to court to sue me.
I have not signed any single documents with Agent B.
All the confirmation are through verbal agreement, phone calls, text messages and emails.

I contacted Consumer Affairs Victoria, according to them I don't have any obligation to pay Agent B nor his client any money.

I would like to hear your opinion about my situation and get any advise what should I do?
thank you in advance for reading.

Go to a lawyer, opinions from forums are not the way to deal with this.

Sorry if this is blunt but while the agent is preparing a case you seem to be surfing the net.

Good luck.

Cheers
Mark

I agree with Aussiemark,

Seek professional advice.

Do not converse any further with Agent B until you get legal advice.

I hope it all works out for you.

I'd wait till you get something with some legal basis (summons etc) from Agent B before you hit the panic button. Agent B is bluffing and trying to intimidate you. If consumer affairs has told you that you are in the right, I would just wait and see how it plays out. Going to a lawyer now will potentially cost you quite a bit of money for nothing. I would suggest that the Agent knows that they don't have a leg to stand on and once their scare tactics don't work will just walk away.

As mentioned leagally you have no obligation to Agent B. But morally you should be ashamed of yourself.

You had an agreement to sell the property through Agent A when you acceptrd that they had a sale. Then you waited 10 days without telling Agent B it had been sold. If you had done that Agent B AND the buyer would not have been inconvenienced.

Hopefully karma doesn't come back and bite you on the backside when you go to purchase a property.

Shame! shame! shame!

Like Aussiemark said. These forums aren't the way to sort this out.

BUT it is entertaining to read.
You've stuffed Agent B around man! why not tell Agent B straight away as soon as its been sold by Agent A? Not only have you stuffed around the agent, but his client too! You can't sell the property to two people!
You're very lucky that Agent A called you that day before you had signed with Agent B. You should feel bad mate!
Agent B has a right to feel p*ssed off. Now I'm not qualified to give any sort of legal advice, but you had an agreement even though it wasn't contracted. If there is evidence of the agreement it does exists. At the end of the day Agent B and his client are out of pocket solely because of you, contracts or not. If it goes to court and he has his ducks in a row he will probably win. And my opinion is that I hope he does, cause you have wronged him. Natural justice would agree.

Hi josh, travelbug,

few months ago, I have in the position where agent A find a buyer, I have signed the contract of sale, the buyer didn't pay any deposit. only to pay legal fee for preparing the contract.
all of the sudden he pulled out. since then I told agent A to get the deposit first and get the buyer signed the contract before I do.

only after that happen, I engaged agent B. so when agent A told me he find a buyer. I can't trust him until the buyer fully paid the deposit.
actually I was about to tell agent B about agent already found a buyer and awaiting for deposit.
However, I got advised by someone not to disclose the information to agent B until I got the confirmation about the deposit from agent A.

I should not involve 2 agents in the first place. and agent B should not take the job since he aware I have exclusive authority with another agent.

I was in the very difficult situation on that day. goes with agent B, agent A will sue me.
goes to agent A, agent B will sue me. it's a lose lose situation for me.

thank you all for the feedbacks.
I will wait until get a summon letter before getting a lawyer.

Just a thought. Since you knew you had an exclusive sales arrangement with Agent A, why did you not terminate that prior to agreeing to Agent B. Or why did you not tell Agent B no. I think it also serves Agent B right as well.

For a start it sounds like Agent B persisted eventhough being told the exclusive was with Agent A. If the seller is willing to engage a second seller and the second seller know about the first seller then why is he so trusting.

I think the real loser in this transaction is the client of Agent B because everyone has stuffed him/ her around.

Cheers
Mark

It's pretty poor form morally.

Actually I think purchaser B dodged a bullet. Imagine what would happen to that renter/buyer if he misses a repayment!

I reckon.

I'm yet to see a rent to buy scheme that doesn't effectively destroy the 'buyer's' rights for the smallest slip up. Should be illegal as far as I'm concerned, targeted at those who can least afford to be screwed by them.

As for the original situation. Well, everyone's been stuffed around, and morally and ethically I think agent b and their buyer deserve compensation. Given that agent B could also show you've paid him costs in relation to the matter, (without being a lawyer), i think they have grounds to argue that you did in fact have a form of agreement in place and as such could have a crack at suing you. Given it'd be a civil matter, it only needs to be proven on the balance of probability. Sorry!



4

Hi,
it seems most of the people labelled me as an unethical person.
Technically there is no direct breach with me and Agent B on the basis of 'whoever gets full deposit first, gets it'.
I have eye witness (my partner and a friend).

The reason behind for full deposit because few weeks before, Agent A told me he sold the house (small deposit $500). I have signed all the agreement and legal contract of sale. on the last minute the buyer pulled out and walk free without pay any compensation to Agent A nor me.

Agent A tried to find new buyer, few weeks past without any progress. I got panicked and get Agent B on board.
When Agent A told me he sold the house 2nd time I asked him to get the full deposit, that's one the reason I didn't tell agent B, as things could go wrong again.

based on that experience and advise from Agent X (friend of mine), I thought nothing is official and legal until document is signed.

Agent B and I never instructed the client to terminate their current lease.
last reply from Agent B, if the client sued him, he will sue me.

I am not a lawyer BUT I am a law student. Obviously that means I am not qualified to give advice and I don't know the ins and outs well enough to give any anyway unless I do some research which I am not going to. I can tell you one thing with certainty though... if his client takes legal action against him you will be joined in those proceedings and you will be liable for the acts of your agent.

In saying that, as mean as it is I wouldn't blame the client for taking some action. I have had a similar thing to this happen to me and it was awful. Just when you have found a property you wish to make a home which often can take months to find "the one".

hi,
I consider this like 'gazumping'
It's going to be difficult for client to take legal action to real estate agent.

References:
http://www.apimagazine.com.au/blog/2012 ... nts-do-it/

http://forum.pulsar.org.au/archive/inde ... 51990.html

http://www.law4u.com.au/cgi-bin/factshe ... cle_id=470

http://www.tyler.com.au/web/faqs.asp#Real_Estate

Purchase/sale of real estate

Can I be gazumped if I leave a holding deposit with the agent for a property I want to buy?
In principle, yes, because the property remains 'on the market' (i.e., available for sale) until a contract for its sale is made. A seller may agree to take the property off the market for a short period after you pay a holding deposit, to give you enough time to complete the things that are necessary before you exchange contracts. However, the seller is not prevented from selling the property to someone else if he chooses to.
If you are buying a residential property, you can exchange contracts and have a 'cooling off' period of 5 business days, during which you can complete the necessary checks and decide whether or not to proceed with the purchase. This prevents the seller from selling the property to anyone else. However, if you decide not to proceed, then you must pay the seller 0.25% of the agreed price.