Sly agent

Settled on sale of property today, my contract stated 1.8% selling costs, includes advertising.

I requested via email her fee and she hit me for 2%.

When I queried this she was vey cagey and stated must of made a mistake. You know when someone is giving you BS, they keep stumbling over words, I doubt it was a mistake..fee is in the contract

Now she wants me to rate her on....ratemyagent.
Other than this she was OK as a selling agent.
Perhaps I am being a little petty?.

MTR

 

I'd reply that I'd be happy to rate her, once her agency processes the refund of 0.2%.

 

Maybe it was 1.8 + gst and she forgot to tell you that part? Just do as per contract says.

 

Glad she accepted responsibility to change it to what she initially quoted.

 

As @Xenia has said, at least she accepted responsibility for it. We're all human with lots going on, so mistakes happen. She'd have been immediately embarrassed about her mistake knowing that the numbers are plain as day on your contract.

If it were me I would take the same approach as mentioned by @Propertunity ... indicate you are happy to rate her once the refund has been issued.

 

good point

 

Mention you would like to see a copy of your trust account ledger. She'll likely ensure she process the refund and THEN produces a copy of the ledger to show that all is well and fixed up.

 

This is a possibility but then it would be 1.98%
GST is a kicker when people quote it and don't say upfront that the price quoted doesn't include it.

 

Law states that any quote in Australia is automatically inclusive of GST.

I had the same argument with my tiler. He quoted me a price of $4700 then after the job sent me an invoice of $5170. I threatened to report him to ATO if he enforced the latter price. His excuse was that he didn't include it because he thought I was paying cash. I said that's even worse!

Won't be using him again.

 

Haha.
So did you just pay the $4,700?

 

Yes, had him redo the invoice with the correct amount so that I could submit to my construction financier

 

Very typical of tradies. They think they are entitled to quote as it is and it means it's without GST.

 

It's not like they are a small salon down the road running on $10 a hair cut and forgot to charge $3 here or there and ask you for it later. They need to honour what was signed up. How could she charge more if that's what was signed up?

 

Were you registered for GST for that build?

 

I hate people who do the sly like that. Can't understand how some people think it's acceptable to conduct business / live life in that manner.

I remember when I was selling my ppr, I told the agent he had 30 days (private treaty, not auction) to sell the place which meant it finished in October (stated this multiple times and he repeated it to me as well). Sitting down filling in the contract, he starts writing December and says it aloud, I correct him and say no it's October and he says yes "December" and continues to write it down

 

Nope, as was intending to keep as rentals. Will write more about this in the dev thread when i do my final summary.

 

Agent had been to a Tony Robbins seminar.

These are not the droids you are looking for.

 

Could have been an honest mistake. Maybe she usually charges 2% and gave a discount of .20% and forgot to amend it on the documentation.

 

Ha - I had the same thing with our jeweler. He priced up our wedding rings at a touch over $4k - I paid, and asked for an invoice. He produced an invoice showing I still owed 10% for GST.

Obviously I argued it, and he said the same thing - "I thought you were paying cash".

I didnt let it fly. He issued us with a reciept and used the wrong ABN (Typo Im sure). When we went through customs and claimed back the tax we couldnt (at the time). I called him up and asked him to issue a new reciept - with his correct details (which I quoted to him) he dragged his feet so I had to remind him that we have already shown the details of the wrong reciept to the customs office - they are waiting for the correct detials.
He sent me the corrected document later that day. I claimed the GST back.

Dodgy bugger.

Blacky

 

I would rate the agent exactly how it occured "decent agent, but when it was time to pay the invoice they tried to charge me more than the amount on the contract & then got upset. Finally agreed to the contract amount".

If it was an honest mistake, they shouldnt be getting upset when you point it out - thats the point when they should be apologising. As for asking you to rate them after they pull a trick like that.... they're playing with fire. Sounds dodgy - give them a review that reflects that.

As for invoices without GST - if they pull the line "I thought you were paying in cash", I'll quite happily tell them to take me to small claims tribunal and see what the legal system thinks. If they want to offer me a cashie job, they're welcome to (which I'll politely decline), however they are morons for thinking it was one without a very specific conversation & especially after drawing up a formal quote.