Sell your house home
cottage flat privately anywhere in the UK from £89 - no commission
Q What does 'no commission' mean? A
Our standard service costs £89, our multi-list service costs £115 (whatever the sale value of the property), that's it. There are no other charges whatsoever now or when the property is sold. There are no hidden costs and VAT is included.
Q What if I'm already using an estate agent?
A
No problem.
The use of our service in addition does not affect your contract with the agent. However, you will NOT have to pay commission to the agent if you find your own buyer privately, using The Little House Company advertising, so you could save a great deal and multiply your chances of selling your home quickly.
Q What about if I have a 'Sole Agency' agreement?
A
Again no problem.
Most people don't realise that a sole agency agreement does not affect your right to sell the property privately. Your agent is entitled to commission only if he sells your property, or if a buyer is introduced by another estate agent during the period of the sole agency. However, if you find a buyer using private advertising such as the The Little House Company self-sell package (we are publishers not estate agents), then you won't be liable to pay any agent's commission.
The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has a free booklet, "Using an estate agent to buy or sell your home", consumer advice leaflet OFT157, which you can order by calling 0870 6060321 or download an Adobe Acrobat version from here:
view /download OFT 157 - pdf file (300k)
Q Should I tell my estate agent?
A
It's a good idea. It may avoid any misunderstanding over commission at a later date and it will also serve to focus their minds on marketing your property more aggressively - they know they will not get paid if they don't introduce your final buyer.
Q Can I sell my house without an Estate Agent?
A
Yes, of course.
Estate agents can take some of the running around off your hands, offering advice, acting as a go-between for you and your potential buyer(s). They may offer a number of benefits to the selling process such as:
advertising the property for sale
arranging appointments for visits
following up buyers to obtain 'feedback'
advice on valuation
creation of the property descriptive details
collation (from you) of relevant documentation
receiving and forwarding offers
selling mortgages, insurance, legal or other services
holding pre-contract deposits (sometimes paid by the buyer)
communicating with your solicitor /conveyancer
keeping tabs on the progress of exchange of contracts
advising on the status of 'chains'
holding the house keys on completion date.
But do you really NEED someone else to provide these services? Remember, the law does not require ANY OF THESE FUNCTIONS to be carried out by an estate agent or indeed any other professional.
When you accept a buyer's offer, you just pass the details straight to your solicitor, who will do the necessary legal work. Better still, check out our on-line conveyancing service.
You only need to consider whether the amount you will have to pay an estate agent is worthwhile in relation to what they may save you in time, convenience and personal effort.
Q
I can't see my town /county in the Buyers Search lists. Do you cover N. Ireland, Scotland & Wales as well as England?
A
Yes. We sell property anywhere in the UK.
To avoid frustrating buyers with potentially empty search results, we only provide searches on counties /towns for properties that actually exist in our database.
If you add a property in a new county, our search listings are automatically updated and your county and town will instantly appear in the list available. When submitting a new property to advertise, you will find a full county selection list on our Sellers (property entry) Form.
Q
Can I update or change my details after they are published on the Web site?
A
Yes.
We have an easy to use online editing facility providing you with instant access to your own property details so that you can amend the published details directly, any time you want, 24 hrs a day.
Change the asking price, update your description, select different contact details - you have direct control, but if you need help with any changes, we give you free support and assistance any time you need it.
Q Do I have to pay now?
A
No.
Property details submitted on-line are displayed immediately on this website, giving buyers the earliest opportunity of viewing currently available homes for sale.
Unpaid listings have contact details withheld and no information is forwarded to our UK partner network. Buyers cannot contact you direct until the advertising is paid for.
To activate an unpaid listing, click here to use our secure online card payment facility, or click on the credit card symbols on our homepage or send a cheque if preferred (print out and attach your cheque to our service order form).
Submission of property details on line does not oblige you to proceed with our full service, but unpaid listings are displayed for a limited period only, so let us know if you do not intend to market the property straight away.
Q When do listings appear on the UK partner sites?
A
It normally takes 1-2 WORKING DAYS for us to review and process listings onto our full partner network, but this may vary according to busy holiday periods and the timing of when listings are placed and paid for.
Q How long can I advertise for?
A
There is no time limit on the period of advertising.
You need to keep us informed of developments, particularly if you accept an offer and /or exchange contracts on the property.
We review customer accounts periodically and reserve the right to discontinue the advertising in the event that we have reason to believe the property is no longer for sale.
Q Why do I need a for sale sign?
A
To cover your local and non-internet market.
Still one of the most effective means of attracting local buyers is a "for-sale" sign outside the door. Its part of your whole marketing package and you will almost certainly miss out on potential buyers if you don't have one.
Our high quality sale board shows our website address and provides a FREEphone number for buyers to contact our office for information about your property instantly, so that they can decide to view or not - possibly on the same day! Free enquiry forwarding is provided as part of our for sale sign package and we post a full colour hardcopy of your details to any enquirers who have no internet access.
OK so it advertises our service to other customers as well, but the more interest created in our web site, the bigger the concentration of visitors who may want to view and ultimately buy your property.
Q How do buyers find this Web site?
A
How did you find it?
The Little House Company is extensively registered with relevant property sites and services throughout the UK, all channelling potential buyers to this site.
In addition, our budget includes ongoing search engine registration and monitoring to ensure a high profile in the major engines.
Q Can buyers register their interest?
A
Yes.
Buyers can register free with any of our UK partners using the "Register with us" link on the main search page in our Buyers Section.
As new properties are added to our service, registered buyers are automatically notified by e-mail (or alternatively by SMS mobile messaging) of those properties matching their search criteria, as they appear.
Q
Why do you charge for your service when there are 'free' listing sites?
A
Nothing worthwhile is truly free, is it? We offer a comprehensive marketing package, which includes freephone assistance, superb individual property presentation and listing on the leading property sites in the UK (with our high-value multi-list package), backed by immense nationwide marketing campaigns.
And one of the most effective, fast, easy to use property websites in the UK, updated daily, guaranteed to keep buyers coming back to view our listings.
Our site and service has been specifically designed to promote your property. You will note the complete lack of spurious advertising which all other sites use to generate their income, which does nothing for you other than get in the way of communication with your target buyers. You want to reach the largest number of people genuinely interested in viewing your home. We provide the most cost effective means of achieving this.
And you don't get that for free.
Q
How can you provide the service for the little you do charge?
A
One of the aspects we are mindful of is our customers' desire to reduce the cost of moving house and remove what is potentially the largest item, namely the estate agents sale commission.
We have invested in systems which we believe provide us with the most efficient means of carrying on our business and still turn a profit, whilst at the same time giving our customers excellent value for money.
If you have any comments which may help us to improve this for the benefit of all our customers, please let us know via the Customer Feedback form.
Q Are my personal details secure?
A
All information in our database is held on servers protected by the same excellent security systems as used by the MOD and United Suisse Bank.
The Little House Company is registered under the Data Protection Act.
It is not our policy to pass on customers' personal details to any outside agencies. We don't sell mailing lists, we sell homes.
Q Why do I keep getting messages saying "Your session has timed out"?
A
The most obvious reason for a time-out message is that you have done nothing online for a very long time, and your visit has "timed out", meaning that you need to start again.
However, if you get time-out errors after only a short time on our site, or when clicking between pages, perhaps your browser settings do not permit "cookies".
Cookies are small bits of data that websites use to remember information about site visitors. There are two types of cookies, stored cookies, which are small files permanently stored on your computer, and per-session cookies, which are held in the memory of your browser and are discarded when you leave our website.
This site uses per-session cookies only.
If you are using Intermet Explorer, you can check this by clicking on the Tools Menu, then selecting Internet Options. Then select the Security Panel. By default, this site will be in the "Internet" zone. If you select that zone, and click on Custom Level, you will see a checklist of options - some way down is a section labelled "Cookies".
There are two parts to this - the second part is labelled "Allow per-session cookies (not stored)". For this site to work, per-session cookies must be enabled.
If you are reluctant to allow cookies globally, you could add this site to the "Trusted Sites" zone and allow cookies for that zone only. This site does NOT require stored cookies - we don't store anything permanently on your machine.