When does the obligation to pay the fees agreed on a sale?

This is one of the more distrust points that arouses more often in the relationship between customers-sellers and intermediaries companies when signing a deed.

Customers – sellers ask us:

When do we have to pay the fees? When signing the down payment? When the agreement of the deed?

This is an important issue and the suspicions are logical because some people has had an experience of this kind or has a friend or acquaintance who has been in this unpleasant situation of paying the fees at the time of signing the deposit, immediately followed by the literal disappearance of the intermediary and from that moment on, having the need of haring a lawyer to watch the operation until the deed and, as its logical, these situations generate insecurity and distrust.

It is true that legally the obligation to pay the fees arises at the time of the down payment, and this is clear in a law of the Provincial Court of Barcelona, ​​dated May 25, 2004, in which it is determined that if there is a sale order, you have to find a buyer, a price has been agreed, and a penitential deposit has been signed, the right has been born to apperceive the fees, regardless of whether or not it is consummated, definitively the sale.

Despite this law we believe the most equitable way to solve this issue by both parties is that half the fees will be charged at the time of signing the down payment and the other half at the time of granting the deed, so the seller will be sure we will watch over her or him interests until the end of the operation.