I just wanted to share my experience with the Century 21 Realty in past 1 month. They are brokers for real estate business and post their ad in Olx.com for sale of flats in Kolkata and surroundings. I also contacted them through olx.com to buy a flat in Rajarhat, Kolkata. The guy who showed us the flats was very nice and very approachable. We finally had a deal for one under construction resale flat with one seller through them and then our trauma started and I lost my several nights sleep because of them. I paid 20% of advance amount of the deal value to seller and agreed the deal to be all inclusive. But as soon as we paid the amount, the next day they informed us that the builder of the flat has increased the super built up area and we have to pay the additional amount for the increased space.
I raised this question about the increased super built up area during our initial negotiation and the seller said that all measurement have been done and the price agreed is all inclusive. When I pointed out this to broker during additional demand by seller, the broker totally denied this and said that he has not heard about this. Finally we had a settlement and we agreed to pay 50% of additional amount.
Now when we went to register the flat we got to know that there is a government rule that if it's a resale and the confirming parties are different you have to pay 1.1% additional registration fee. The broker have kept us totally in dark about this rule although they claim themselves to be leading broker house in that area and do this type of transaction daily.
We could have negotiated accordingly with the seller if we could have known this earlier. I told broker to inform this to seller and help in getting it reimbursed from them, but they did not listened to it.
I was in a bit hurry to register the flat as I was going abroad for work and bank told me to get it registered before I fly. These guys showed bit pro activeness in the beginning till the payment of advance amount. But after that they started dragging the matter and I have to run from pillar to post to collect the requisite documents from builder and seller.
Overall, I felt that they were much seller centric rather than buyer's side, although they said that they are taking brokerage from buyer only. So I could not understand why they were supporting seller with all the lies.
Hence, my humble request is that please be careful while dealing with them, have everything in writing, get a good lawyer before paying any money.
- Thank You! We appreciate your effort.