April 4
With regard to the letters re “House for Sale” that have appeared in your last two editions, I am not sure that Joan Mason is fully correct.
We also are selling our house to move back to UK. Joan Mason has made the assumption that Mr Packham is returning to have the benefit of a lower pound. I guess this could be true, but it is entirely possible he is returning for other reasons (family, grandchildren, a better legal system, language, medical etc,)
We priced our house at 300,000 euros. Our agent then stuck his commission on top, plus IVA and advertised our house at a new price of 345,000. The agent then proceeded to bring round various people who, as Mr Packham suggested, simply did not want or require our type of house.
A number of viewers would have bought our house had it been at a lower price, but the agent would not budge on its commission and I most certainly would not lower the price I wanted for my house. . No way was the agent going to forfeit his 15,000 euro.
Incidentally, in the small print of the Contract with this estate agent was a clause that stipulated that if a buyer subsequently withdraws from the sale and has to pay a default of, say 10,000 euro, the estate agent will take half of this amount !!
Mr Packham is right to the point when he implies that estate agents’ charge of 5% commission is exorbitant for the work they do. I am surprised that no estate agent charges say 2%, or 3% as if they did I would imagine they would take all the custom.
Of course other nationalities will still want to come to Spain, but the majority of buyers do, as various magazines and papers write, come from the UK. I too doubt they will come if there is an exit from the EU.
I have now cancelled our estate agent and have gone with another agent who has put our house on more than seven web sites, such as Zoopla, for just 289 euros/year, and no commission. So far we have been very satisfied with this new agent.
David Petie
Alhaurin el grande
