Help! Estate Agent Threatening to SUE!!

[Tracilla]

Firstly we are in Scotland so the rules may differ!

Having had our house on the market to sell for over a year, we decided to rent it out when we bought another property.
The Agent was hopeless and we needed to cover the mortgage payments.

I got my Solicitor to draw up a Tenancy Agreement and luckily we managed to get it rented out privately within a week.

Now the selling agent has found out and is threatening to sue over non payment of the cancellation fee!

Now we never cancelled our Sale of the house - as far as I am aware it is still advertised for sale.

We were called about 2 months ago with a prospective buyer wanting to view but I didn't return the call as I had been made aware there had been a repossession of the same house as ours and in the same street which was £40K CHEAPER than ours! So I presumed if they had done their homework (as I had done) They would know they were just being 'nosy'!

All advice welcomed!

[drhouse]

So if you haven't cancelled the sale this means you still want to sell. You need to advise the agent of this, whether you want to sell at the end of the lease or sell with a sitting tenant, how long the lease is and the arrangements now for viewing. Your tenant needs to know that they may get viewers although I think you are not allowed to do viewings until only 2 months remain on the lease (I could be wrong on the last bit). If you are taking the property off the market I think you will find the cancellation fee is payable - read your agreement.
You say you were called about a viewer but didn't have the courtesy to call back. Personally I would have called you again and again until I did get a response but that is another story. How would you or your agent know that they were being nosy. This other house might have been trashed and need 50K of work.
If your agent was hopeless I hope you tried to address this. If you didn't how would they know there was a problem ?
My advice is pay the fee which you are due. If you had been my seller I would have terminated the agreement and still billed you and if you didn't pay yes I would have sued.

[isproperty]

Selling through an agent is a partnership with you and them.

You obviously didn't inform them you were letting the property

You avoided or didn't answer their calls when they got viewings

No wonder they are not sympathetic towards you as they will feel you wasted their time.

Pay the bill - as long as it was part of the contract which after all I presumed you signed?