Mandate contracts between consumers and real estate agents

• Author: Consumers, Health, Agriculture and Food Executive Agency (European Commission), Deloitte consortium, IPSOS, London Economics
• Pages: 149-154

149

6. Mandate contracts between consumers and real estate

agents

This chapter considers contra ct types offered by real estate agents. Section 6.1 and 6.2

look specifically at mandate contracts concluded between consumers and real estate

agents.

Box 4: Summary of findings  Mandate contracts

• Across the EU28, when selling or letting a property through a real estate agent,

simple mandate c ontracts were more common than exclusive mandate

contracts. In a small number of countries (Belgium, the UK, Sweden and Iceland),

exclusive mandates were more regularly used than simple mandates.

• Although consumers appear satisfied with the information provided to them by the

real estate agent about conditions and obligations attached to the real estate agency

contract, few consumers said to be very satisfied with th e information provided.

6.1 Mandate contracts between consumers and real estate agents

6.1.1 Choice and negotiations on mandate contracts for con sumers buying or renting

A slim majority (56%) of respondents to the consumer survey who had hired a real estate

agent to find them a property, had signed a contract wi th one real estate ag ent, and 8%

had signed a contract with more than one agent; the remaining 36% ha d not signed a

contract with the real estate agent they had hired.

Among the respondents who had signed a contract with a real estate agent, 35% reported

that they were offered a choice between different types of contract. Additionally, 38% had

been able to negotiate the agent’s fee and 27% the type of fee to be paid (e.g. fixed fee

vs. % of final price/rent), 25% had been able to choose the duration of contract and 14%

the level of compensation if the contract was broken. Just under 4 in 10 (37%) consumers

who had signed a contract with a real estate agent indicated that they had not been able

to negotiate any of the conditions of this contract with the real e state agent.

6.1.2 Choice and negotiations on mandate contracts for con sumers selling or letting

As per the consumer survey, across the EU28, 79% of consumers who had sold/let (or

attempted to sell/let) a property through a real estate agent, had also signed a contract

with this real estate agent. The majority of these respondents had signed a c ontract with

one real estate agent, compared to 19% who had signed a contract with more than one

real estate agent.

Consumers who had sold (or attempted to sell) a property via a real estate agent were

more likely to state that they had signed a contract with this real estate agent (82% vs.

72% among consumers who had sol d/attempted to sell a property), and they were also

more likely to have signed a contract with more than one agent (23% vs. 12 %).

The results in Figure 35 show that, across the EU28, simple mandate contracts were more

common than exclusive mandate contracts (47% vs. 31%). In a small number of countries,

however, exclusi ve mandates w ere more regularly used than simple mandates: Belgium

(52% ‘exclusive’ vs. 33% ‘simple’), the UK (46% vs. 34%), Sweden ( 40% vs. 29%) and

Iceland (45% vs. 17%).