Why flat buyers should approach sellers directly
I READ with interest the article, ‘Complaints against unethical housing agents on the rise’ (The Sunday Times, Aug 26). Allow me to share my recent experience.
I put up my HDB flat for sale two weeks ago, with the intention of handling the transaction myself.
Since then, I have received tonnes of calls from property agents and some of the tactics they employ are an eye-opener for me.
The most common calls are from agents who ask to co-broke. When they realise that I am the seller, they ask for details of the flat before ending with their most important question - whether I will be paying them a commission should they bring potential buyers for a viewing.
Some never call again when I reply ‘no’, while others will still bring the buyers in.
If a buyer expresses interest in my flat, the agent asks for the final asking price. Say I quote a figure of $300,000. The agent then asks if I will agree to reflect a price of $303,000 in the documents and pay him $3,000, as ‘the buyer needs to show a higher price for loan purposes, and is willing to pay the commission on your behalf’.
Common sense tells me that this is untrue. Chances are the buyer will simply be told that the seller is asking for $303,000 and, if the deal is sealed, the agent ends up with commission from both sides.
Another tactic - an agent even put up an advertisement for the sale of my flat, even though I have not engaged one.
I discovered this when I posed as a buyer and pretended to make a viewing appointment.
It is interesting that PropNex’s CEO called for the Government to step in, as this case involved a PropNex agent.
I strongly urge all buyers to consider bypassing agents and approach owners directly where such an option is available.
Otherwise, their viewings will be limited to properties that the agents have ’shortlisted’, which are likely those where sellers are willing to pay a commission.
Worse, the price that they pay may have been inflated to build in the seller’s commission.
Tan Bee Hong (Ms)
Source : Straits Times - 28 Aug 2007
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Qiu zhen wrote:
I refer to the letter by Mr Low Swee Kim (ST, Aug 7) and the letter by Ms. Chin Li Fen of IRAS (ST 11 Aug 2007) and “Complaints against unethical housing agents on the rise (ST 26 Aug 2007) and today’s letter wrote by Ms. Tan Bee HOng.
i strongly agreed with her.
As quoted by Mr Mohamed Ismail (Chief Executive of Propnex), “there is no central regulatory body, calling on the Government to step in”.
My question is the suitability for those Accredited Agencies, like PropNex to use such an excuse and simply to push all the responsibility to government.
Did the accredited agency itself take the enough measure to make sure their agents will conduct honestly, ethically, and will not use misleading advertising material, will not make misrepresentation and the false statement to mislead the client to sign the agreement?
We have met a very dishonest agent from Propnex last year.
He used the misleading advertising material, make false statement to represented himself as “HDB Listed Agency” and translated into Chinese like ” HDB 注册经纪” ( in fact, it is illegal to use the acronym ‘HDB’
under Housing Development Act. and such a scheme has been discontinued since 1 June 2006 and the agent himself is neither member of IEA nor the member of SAEA).
He was the agent representing the seller of the flat we have purchased at the onset, but he did not disclose to us.
He followed PropNex’s policy to charge us GST, but, selectively choosed not to ask us, the independent buyer, whether need his service? Never show us the list of services he will render to us, which is the requirement of Propnex as told by Propnex’s MD Mdm Mary Loo to newspaper reporter.
He agreed to change the commission to lower amount while urging us to sign and we did see him crossed and amended both the numbers and wording before we agreed to sign.
He intentionally withheld all the documents we signed, did not give us the carbon copy on the spot, only returned few weeks later with incomplete set of OTP and the Commission Agreement without showing any amendment.
During the whole process, he represented the best interest for seller whenever there is interest conflict between seller and buyer.
Later, PropNex use the wrong amount to send the Proforma invoice to us. We paid half and they submit the claim via Small Claims Tribunals.
During the mediation, we questioned the unprofessional and dishonest conduct of the agent and requested to view the original white copy of the Commission Agreement we signed, PropNex legal assistant said their company will keep the copy and will never never let us see. She also told us we can complain to whatever institution we want.
During the hearing, the agent admitted that the agreed amount is lower, but he said it was their company’s procedures to charge full and later, he will pay the difference from his own pocket.
l How can Propnex choose not to issue Tax Invoice at the right time
with the correct amount as required by IRAS GST recognition guideline?
l Why they can bill the client without looking at the contract sum? If
they can do whatever they want, what’s the meaning of signing the agreement?
l To bind the client only? For their legal department use to claim
based on the Contract Law?
l Can a company conduct their business beyond the law just because of
their size is big?
l Why we don’t have right to know what has happened to the documents we signed?
The accredited agencies should not push all the responsibility to government and need to make their own effort to make sure their associated agents and staffs’ conduct do not breach of the core value of real estate industry, like PropNex’s announced on their website, which is : Honesty, Integrity, Ethics.
During the transition period up to 2009, if the Agencies do not take action to prevent such agents’ dishonest and unethical behavior, in short term, the bad agents can spot the short to make the money and share with their agencies. But in long term, what the agencies lost is their market reputation.
Posted on 29-Aug-07 at 10:01 am | Permalink