Bringing a property to the attention of a prospective buyer when you have no instructions from the seller requires a variety of skills, not to mention a suitably toughened skin.
In addition, as made plain by the much discussed county court judgment in Lady Manor Ltd v Fat Cat Café Bars Ltd [2001] 33 EG 88, some careful legal groundwork is required in order to ensure that success will be suitably rewarded.
In that case, it was common ground that no charge could be made for the information disclosed in the initial approach. Baldly stated, what you must do is to get the prospect to agree to pay for an additional service that you are prepared to render. The terms of the proposal have to be clear. It was at that point in Fat Cat that the claimant’s case broke down: see John Murdoch’s careful commentary in
A failure to get written proof of such an agreement poses obvious problems: see
Outside the realm of legal commentary, the problem remains of how to be totally “up front” without persuading the prospect that a finder’s fee is being asked for something that is lying on the pavement.
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Bringing a property to the attention of a prospective buyer when you have no instructions from the seller requires a variety of skills, not to mention a suitably toughened skin.
In addition, as made plain by the much discussed county court judgment in Lady Manor Ltd v Fat Cat Café Bars Ltd [2001] 33 EG 88, some careful legal groundwork is required in order to ensure that success will be suitably rewarded.
In that case, it was common ground that no charge could be made for the information disclosed in the initial approach. Baldly stated, what you must do is to get the prospect to agree to pay for an additional service that you are prepared to render. The terms of the proposal have to be clear. It was at that point in Fat Cat that the claimant’s case broke down: see John Murdoch’s careful commentary in The price of knowledge Estates Gazette 16 June 2001, p160, and the advice given by Suzan Knight in Madness in the method Estates Gazette 10 November 2001, p136.
A failure to get written proof of such an agreement poses obvious problems: see Agents put to the proof Estates Gazette 23 March 2002, p132, where John Murdoch considers the decision of Rafferty J in George (t/a Temple Trees) v Bellway Homes Ltd [2002] PLSCS 195.
Outside the realm of legal commentary, the problem remains of how to be totally “up front” without persuading the prospect that a finder’s fee is being asked for something that is lying on the pavement.
