I have been reading this thread with interest and as we have just sold our property using an agent, thought I would add my experience. We bought our apartment in 2004 for 91,340 euros, plus 1000 euros for fitted wardrobes to be included in the build and air con etc.
We firstly tried advertising our apartment with an internet sales web page - they just advertise it for a fee and refer on interested parties. This was a complete waste of time and cost 300 euros, all we got was scam emails. Following on from this after 2 yrs of nothing we decided to go with an agent that marketed lots of properties in Torrevieja but the agent lived locally to our apartment so was able to advise us (we thought) and the most appropriate price to pitch our apartment at, plusses and minuses involved etc. of the marketing. He told us his company charged 3000 euros plus IVA if the property was sold under 100,000 euros which included us. As we were marketing it at 59,950 this seemed expensive but affordable. After 18 months he suggested we reduce our price to a similar price to other apartments being sold on our development, so we reduced it to 49,950 and a few months later he said he had an interested party. As I said he came back with an interested party but not a buyer he had managed to obtain but through another local estate agent. Also I might add I saw our apartment being offered for 3 or 4 different prices with different agents on Kyero.com even though we had not been asked if they could do this. The offer made he said would leave us with 37,000 euros (at this stage he would not say what the offer price was), then he dropped the bombshell that this 37,000 was because we would have to pay two agents' fees. We refused and on his pushing us for our final selling price, we told him that we wanted to walk away with 40,000 AFTER agent's fees and that we would only pay one fee. He was reluctant to pressure the buyer in case we lost him but we were past the point of caring after having reduced the price to such a low level and told him so. Anyway the buyer pushed up his price (as we later were told by the agent) to 43,000 from which the agent took his fee - 3000 plus 450 IVA !
When we took into account solicitor fees (well gestoria as we got a cheaper quote than from our solicitor who carried out the purchase), Plusvalia, Agent's fees, 3% retention, 100 euros retention for utility bills and another 150 euros the buyer's solicitor insisted upon for SUMA even though we had a bank statement clearing stating it had been paid by direct debit 5 weeks ago, and then paying in the cheque to the bank, another 109 euros bank charge for depositing the cheque and we will have to pay another 51 euros to bring the cash home.
We have walked away with the grand sum of £27,200 !!!!! When you consider we have ended up with about 40% of what we paid for the apartment, how can any agent wonder why you question their fees ? The agent ended up with almost 10% of what we sold for and we ended up with 40% of what we bought for.
We have been stung every step of the way and it has taught us never to purchase anything again in Spain.
Perhaps now Georgia can understand why people question what they are getting for their money when they are being asked to pay 10% of the sales price when in the UK you pay 2% at most.