Case Name
Wakefields Real Estate v Attree (666/10) [2011] ZASCA 160 (28 September 2011).
Area of Law
Estate Agents Commission – The effective cause of the sale when more than one estate agent involved.
Summary
This matter centred around the sale of a property.
Wakefields (along with a number of other agencies) were given an oral mandate to sell the property during which a prospective purchaser (Mrs Howard) was introduced to the property. At the time Ms Howard loved the property but was not financially in a position to purchase the property at the asking price. Notwithstanding same Ms Howard returned on a number of occasions with her husband to view the property with the Wakefields agent (who was eventually told by the Howards that they were not looking to buy any more and would renovate their existing house).
Agents from Remax eventually convinced the seller to reduce the asking price and secured a sole mandate to sell the property. The seller further communicated this reduction in asking price to Pam Golding. An agent from Pam Golding fortuitously came across the Howards in a shopping centre during the weekend before the first Remax show day and communicated the reduction in the asking price to the Howards which eventually resulted in the sale of the property to the Howards.
Because Remax at the time had the sole mandate, the commission that was paid was split between Pam Golding and Remax, and nothing was paid to Wakefields
Wakefields claim in the high court was dismissed, the Learned Judge holding that Wakefields introduction of the Howards to the property was the sine quo non of the sale but not the causa causans and thus they were not entitled to commission as to many intervening factors had occurred following Wakefields introduction of the Howards to the property.
Wakefields were successful in the appeal the Learned Justices holding that Wakefields were the effective cause of the sale and that “the fact that the sellers find themselves liable to pay more than one agent commission is of their own making, and that they have only themselves to blame for the predicament further that they should have protected themselves against such a claim.“
In making such finding the Learned Justices quoted from the case of Webranchek v L K Jacobs & Co Ltd 1948 (4) SA 671 (A) at 678 where I quote:
“Situations are conceivable in which it is impossible to distinguish between the efforts of one agent and another in terms of causality or degrees of causation. In such a situation it may well be that the principal may owe commission to both agents and that he has only himself to blame for his predicament; for he should protect himself against that risk.”
The seller was order to pay Wakefields 6% commission, with interest.
Importance/ Value
Commission agents are paid by results and not by good intentions or even hard work. If any action of an Estate Agent render them the effective cause of the sale, such agent has produced a result for which they are entitled to commission, even if this means that the seller has to pay the commission to more than one agent (as evidenced by above, the seller having to pay 3 agents commission)
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