The Consumers’ Foundation yesterday said although many real estate agencies claim their contracts contain built-in guarantees for both buyers and sellers, in actuality, sellers receive inadequate protection against buyers who fail to comply with the terms of the contract.
The consumer rights watchdog recently reviewed the service contracts of 10 real estate agencies across the country and found that although all the agencies claimed “contract guarantees,” the agencies were unable to protect sellers in the event that the buyer failed to make the full payment as stated in the contract.
When asked whether real estate agencies would leave it to the seller to demand the unpaid balance if the home buyer did not pay the full amount when the property had already been transferred into the buyer’s name, none of the agencies surveyed said they would be able to guarantee that the seller would be properly compensated, foundation chairman Hsieh Tien-jen (謝天仁) said.
In other words, real estate agencies only act as go-betweens between buyers and sellers, and the “contract guarantee” that the agencies advertise as part of their service does not in effect benefit the seller, the foundation said.
The foundation said that 70 percent of the real estate agencies surveyed require clients to pay an extra fee for the contract guarantee service. Based on an average house price of between NT$9.95 million and NT$19.97 million in Taipei, the fee for the guarantee service ranges anywhere from NT$1,990 to NT$11,982.
The survey also showed that all 10 of the agencies surveyed were permitted to deduct broker fees or commission from the independent fund into which home buyers transfer payments, which means that contrary to the sellers’ “guarantee” that they will receive payment from the buyer as stated in the contract, it is the agency that is guaranteed to receive its commission and fees from the transaction, Hsieh said.
“If the real estate agency offers home buyers and sellers a ‘contract guarantee’ service, then the real estate agency should be responsible for ensuring that both the buyer and seller get what they signed up for,” he said. “If the buyer fails to pay the full amount to the seller as promised in the contract, then the real estate agency should be held accountable for demanding the unpaid balance from the buyer, rather than simply transferring the responsibility onto the seller.”
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