“Avoid Haarts. Very Misleading & Unfair Terms & Conditions...”
1 Star Review
Nov 07,2018
By:
'John'
Nov 07,2018
Branch: Lincoln, 37 Silver Street
Services: Sales (as a Vendor)
Would you recommend?: No
Postcode: LN5
Branch: Lincoln, 37 Silver Street
Sales (as a Vendor)
Postcode: LN5
0
people found
this helpful
.The contract document is contradictory & very misleading because where the document was signed it said that we were liable to pay Haarts their fee if we sold it to a buyer who they'd introduced but tucked away there was another clause that said we were liable to pay even if Haarts hadn't introduced our buyer.
We've bought & sold lots of houses & dealt with quite a few estate agents & Haarts are the most unreasonable one we've ever dealt with.
We foolishly signed a contract with Haarts Lincoln branch 4 days before the house was valued by them but on the day of the valuation we had an offer from a private buyer who approached us & which we accepted.
Haarts did carry out a viewing the day after the valuation but we'd already sold the house & Haarts potential buyer offered substantially less than we'd sold it for.
Basically we're paying the fee for little more than a valuation & a For Sale board. We have been billed for the full fee which equates to an extremely high 3.5% of the sale price.(we've never paid more than 1.8% before).
We have challenged the bill but this is the reply we received from them
"Further to your previous correspondence and conversations with head office as per our terms and conditions of the contract you have signed with us, you are liable to pay haart if a sale is agreed during the period our agreement, even if the purchaser was not found by us but by any other person, including yourself."
Therefore, as stated, we will be paying their full fee for little more than a valuation visit & a For Sale board.
Haarts sole agency terms & conditions mean that they can bill you for a sale in which they played no part & can deem to have introduced a buyer to you even if they haven't & can use this clause months after a private sale has taken place.
Another clause required us to inform Haarts who our private buyer was & they then contacted both him & his solicitor & registered him onto their books.
Haarts did offer a very small reduction of £200 off a bill of £2,700 which is an absolute insult which we've refused & we've paid the full amount.
One more important thing is that we thought we'd cancelled our contract when we contacted the local branch but their terms & conditions required us to write to their head office in Colchester.
We might send our experience of Haarts to Rip-off Britain as a warning to other people of the pitfall of such terms & conditions & the need to check through them with a fine tooth comb, which I didn't do.
It's too late to help us but an estate agent comparison site recommended Starkey & Brown in Lincoln who are a local Lincolnshire company & have excellent reviews. Haarts in Lincoln are not local, they're part of a big national company based in Colchester.
Comment on agent fees
Fixed fee of £2,700 which equated to a percentage of 3.5%
0
people found
this helpful
Was this helpful?
Yes