20190330 (Sat) Removing “Person responding to…”, what say you?

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.

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