Estate Agency Contracts are too one sided

I’m always amazed that many High Street estate agents (with one or two exeptions) still insist that their clients sign restrictive contracts with lengthy tie in periods, 12 or even 16 weeks in common, and even ask for 2 weeks written notice in many cases. Signing such a contract is definitely not in the seller’s interest as if for any reason you are not happy with the service being provided, or simply have a change of heart and decide to try someone else, you are stuck. It may be your home but once you have signed the contract you are no longer free to sell it with whoever you wish. To my mind these practices are way out of date, which is why we have always used a client friendly contract, adapted from one recommended by Which? Magazine in their campaign for better estate agency, which has no tie-in or notice periods. We’ve even added an anti-gazumping clause as we detest this practice and want to do our bit to stamp it out. We’d rather our clients worked with us because they were happy to do so, than because they were forced to by a piece of paper.