Estate agent fee RIP-OFF: House sellers have paid more than £300m this year so far

The average commission paid to a High Street agent across England and Wales is £3,862.

And this is despite traditional agents cutting their sales commission from a typical 1.6 per cent to 1.3 per cent to compete with a growing number of online services.

The £26bn worth of property already sold in 2017 means families have spent £303.6m on estate agents fees, according to new figures from online estate agent, eMoov.co.uk.

Londoners have paid the largest amount of fees (£70,146,490), due to higher property prices.

The South and East of England is also home to the majority of the highest fees paid with Surrey (£13,303,190), Essex (£10,250,462) and Kent (£9,404,396) also seeing millions paid in commission.

Greater Manchester is home to the fifth highest amount at £9,094,250.

The top 10 is completed by Hertfordshire (£9,093,068), Hampshire (£8,964,127), the West Midlands (£7,473,729), West Yorkshire (£6,726,050) and West Sussex (£6,369,375).

Founder of eMoov Russell Quirk, said: “This research demonstrates the eye-watering amount of money that’s still being paid due to the outdated practice of charging based on a property’s value.

“Of course, not all agents charge as much but there are many agents that will still charge more, and with hybrid and online agents charging a fixed fee with a now proven service track record, it remains to be seen why you should pay more to sell your house because it is of a higher value.

“The only silver lining to this research is that in years gone by, this figure would have been a lot higher.

“Although the online and hybrid sector still only accounts for 5.51 per cent of the market, it still represents a considerable saving and one that is only set to keep increasing as we take more market share.”