Mislead by dishonest estate agent
<p>I was interested to purchase a property in Parys and wanted to make an offer on a specific house. I made a cash offer of R25 000 below the asking price. The estate agent, Pieter Struwig, told me that the seller will not accept this offer unless he reduces his commission to between 3% and 3,5%. He made this statement to my wide and I and said that he is willing to accept only 3% to 3.5% commission.</p> <p> </p> <p>Mr Struwig said he negotiated with the seller and my offer was accepted with the understanding that the seller will be getting the price he/she wanted and that the estate agency has reduced his commission accordingly.</p> <p> </p> <p>Only later after the offer to purchase was signed by all parties, I calculated the percentage commission and was horrified to discover that the commission that he will be receiving was in actual fact 6.1%.</p> <p> </p> <p>I am aware that the commission is paid by the seller, but I was misled to believe that he will be receiving a lower commission to arrive at my lower offer price.</p> <p> </p> <p>If I knew that he will be getting his full commission, I would have offered still a lower price, but Mr Struwig insisted that the seller will not negotiate and that I will be wasting my time to put in a lower offer price.</p> <p> </p> <p>I contacted and confronted him and he dismissed the whole issue, claiming he forgot or it could have been on another property he showed us earlier. As mentioned earlier, Mr Struwig , verbally agreed that he will only ask for a 3% to 3.5% commission on the property.</p> <p> </p> <p>We feel that Mr Struwig misled us and was dishonest in his dealings with us.</p> <p> </p> <p>We are going on pension soon and every cent of our life savings have gone to secure this property.</p> <p> </p> <p>I also want to mention that after my confrontation with Mr Struwig, he became very quiet and "busy"and I had to deal with the owner to finalize the handover of the keys and other administrative issues.</p> <p> </p> <p>So if you think of dealing with FS Eiendomme in Parys, be very careful that you are not misled by this dishonest estate agent as we were!</p>