20190330 (Sat)
Removing “person responding to this flyer are not required to pay”, what say you?
6.2.7.3 in MEAS 2014 said that every flyer MUST carry the following statement:
“Person responding to this flyer are not required to pay any estate agency fee whatsoever for the properties referred to in this flyer as this firm is already retained by a particular principal.”
Now in MEAS 2018, this is silent/deleted.
Indeed, when an advertisement is put forward to public, instruction must have been secured from a principal (be him seller/landlord or buyer/tenant). When such engagement of agent to his principal is already certain, a fee for his work should be paid by his principal, and not the third party (who responds to this advertisement).
However, in local practice, it is very hard to get a buyer/tenant to engage an agent to look for a property. So, “ready tenant” or “ready buyer” flyers are not really by “engaged agents”. The tenant/buyer had never engaged the agent. It is just the Agent Advertising for leads – kind of cheating the public. Indeed, although the “persons responding … “ statement is there, it has no teeth to bite!
So, “person responding to…” has no effect in stopping the agent from charging fee to third party (owner/landlord). No landlord/seller would get his house rented or sold without having to pay an agent his fees. It is market behaviour. There is NO FREE LUNCH.
