Expat Community > Thailand

martincvs
Joined 2004
Posts: 2

Conduct of Real Estate Agents (Executive Homes)

20 years ago

The property market in Bangkok has been booming in the past 18-24 months.

Last year, we decided to put our property on the market and advertised it in the papers. Many agents and interested buyers contacted us and viewed the apartment. One of the was Khun Youme of Executive Homes (http://www.executive-homes.biz/). She had a potential buyer who according to her was very keen. She asked us to sign a form to register her client with us. Not thinking much we signed this form (as we had done happily done before with a number of agents) acknowledging that she introduced this buyer.

However, this agent was very difficult, uninformed, and unhelpful. She could not or did not answer basic questions about charges, taxes, fees, the process etc. She did not facilitate the discussions with the customer at all (I had a prepared an a list with an inventory and questions (eg about furniture, who pays what, sinking fund, other conditions, etc) to the buyer which she did not passed on). My wife hated her because she liked to come without an appointment on a couple of occasion and expected us to open the doors and she our property to strangers.

Our asking price had been at least 21m Baht so when the agent proposed 18.5m (and still not able to answer the question what our bottom line would be) we had enough and told her to go away. A week later we were contacted by a gentleman who said he found out about our property from the reception. We agreed on a sales price of 20m Baht and used a lawyer to conclude the transaction within a couple of weeks only and very smoothly.

However, later on it transpired that this person actually had a relationship with the other person introduced to us by the agent. Surprise, surprise, the agent duly contacted us a while later and asked for her 3% commission (Bt 600,000) because she had introduced the client (indirectly)!

We refused because we felt that she had not introduced this client and that it was her own fault that the sale did not happen through her or her client. She did not communicate, answer questions, was unprofessional, and unhelpful. If she had been as persistent during the sale as she is now, maybe we could have sold our apartment for 21m Baht. Since we sold, we still had many agents and end buyers contacting us, some even asking whether we had more units to sell.

The agent is now threatening court and we are thinking whether we should fight it.

I have contacted the Real Estate Agents Association (REBA) to get their input on expected conducts and standards by their agents but to date not received an answer. I was wondering what the experience of other people is. Can we not expect some service, professionalism, and expertise for our money?

Martin Venzky-Stalling

Cigna Global Health

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