Help with court claim

[jsimmo]

Hi this is my first post. have been searching for help in regard to a court claim i have received, dated 20th may 2014. This site has been of great help so far, but would like a little more information to my personal case if possible.The basic story is i used an estate agent to sell my house, we verbally agreed on a package of an upfront payment split into 2, and where if the house sold before the second payment was made the remainder would be collected on completion. I made him aware of problems i had had with other estate agents and was promised that those would not be repeated and of how his company would market my property. The house was put on the market, i paid half of the agreed fee. To cut a long story short, I did not receive the service promised. On completion, my solicitors contacted the agents and were told there was no outstanding balance. I knew this was incorrect but waited to hear from the agents. After contacting me, i made my dissatisfaction clear about their broken promises and incompetence with the intention of getting a reduced price. The sales manager would not accept any responsibility and glossed over my complaints saying 'the house got sold so you owe us'. The house was sold 19th December 2014 and my final contact with him was 7th February, on 27th April I was contacted by the owner of the agents who was very apologetic. He also informed me that the sales manager had been sacked but said that even so I still owed the total fee and would not accept my opening offer of a further part payment. I refused to pay full price for a service that I did not receive. He told me that he would instruct solicitors to draw up papers to start the collection process for their fees for a no sale no fee price, with no mention of my original first payment. I have as mentioned received the claim form, and particulars state that the sale completed on 04 Dec (completed on 19th) That I agreed to make a no sale no fee transaction with them and would pay their fees on completion. (Not true) I have acknowledged receipt online and disputed the full amount. I would like any advice of my chances of success, other options available to settle this, or any advice at all please.

[Amethyst]

Re: Help with court claim

I think to be able to help we'll need to see the particulars of claim as well as the contract you signed with the estate agents.

What was the service you didn't receive ? The house was sold - was it sold to someone who came through that agency?

[jsimmo]

Re: Help with court claim

Hello, Thank you for replying so quickly.
The particulars of the claim are:
Mr xxxxxx instructed IS Property a trading name for investment solutions (uk) ltd which is a Sheffield based Estate agent to sell his property xxxxxxxxx , this undertaking was started on 25th june2013. The property received an accepted offer on 08 Oct 2013 for a#107, 000. The sale completed on 04 Dec 2013. Mr xxxxxx agreed to make a no sale no fee transaction with ourselves and would pay our fees on completion. Since Dec we have been trying to negotiate this paywith mr xxxxxx , however we have not been able to resolve this issue.
The claimant claims interest under section 60 of the County Courts act 1984 at the rate of 8% a year from 04/12/2013 to 19/05/2014 on #1, 800.00 and also interest at the same rate up to the date of judgement or earlier payment at a daily rate of #53.65.
I did not sign a contract.
It was a verbal agreement of £699 +vat split into two equal payments, the second to be collected on completion if house sells before.
Was promised professional photography, after expressing dissatisfaction provided photos myself.
After 8 weeks without a viewing, researched market and found house was considerably over priced and not described to its full potential. I provided a full rewrite to the sales manager and requested a £10, 000 price reduction. He discarded my rewrite over his shoulder without reading it, (rudely) soma details were changed and price reduced resulting in viewings and offers.
After accepting offer the buyers were let in the house without my consent, this was one of the main stipulations I requested at the time of instruction, as another estate agent had done this to me.
Before accepting offer I made it clear that to accept such a low offer completion must take place before 8th Dec 2013.
I was told that servey would take place on 31st oct 2013, two weeks later I contacted the agents for progress report to be told buyers had changed lenders and servey was yet to be arranged. In all bad communication and bad sevice.
The house was sold through the agents.