Real Estate Agent Liability: Are You Entitled to Compensation?

Questioner

In 2008 I bought an apartment. In August of this year I decided to put the apartment up for sale. Measurements by my real estate agent showed 51 m2. A loss of almost 10 m2 on a home of 60 m2 is not insignificant, and will probably cost me a lot of money. I contacted the selling real estate agent at the time. He pointed out the well-known disclaimer in the brochure that accuracy cannot be guaranteed and after a number of e-mails back and forth I was told that his professional liability insurance forbade him to e-mail me any further about this subject. Now I am curious whether a real estate agent can be held liable for this.

Lawyer

Dear questioner, That is not something that can be said without further ado. The first question is which measurement methods were used then and now. These methods have become increasingly strict over the years, which means that less may be included. The apartment could therefore be 60 square metres in total (is that so?), but that is something different than usable surface area. See, for example, the measurement standard that was introduced at the NVM in 2010 at http://www.nvm.nl/~/media/nvmwebsite/downloads/wonen/meetinstructie%20gebruiksvlakte%202010

Lawyer

For office buildings, which are bought as an investment object, the number of square meters is of great importance. For homes, however, the rule is that you buy what you see: as a buyer of a home, you often do not assume a price per square meter, but the total impression of the home, which you relate to the amount you would be willing to pay for it. You will therefore have to be able to demonstrate that, if you had known that the home was smaller than stated, you would have paid less for the home. Then the question of whether you can contact the broker. Initially, I would think that you should contact the previous owner. Contacting the broker is somewhat less obvious. Indeed, many brokers include a disclaimer regarding information in sales brochures and the Supreme Court recently ruled that brokers may in principle also rely on this in relation to buyers, if it turns out that the information in the brochure is not entirely correct.

Lawyer

I assume that the price was determined on the basis of a square meter price. If that is the case and you can prove it, I think that error can be proven. That is to say that you or both parties were mistaken about the facts when entering into the agreement (the number of m2 in this case). A second approach could be that you did not receive what you could expect - non-conformity. That is a bit more difficult if you have viewed the apartment beforehand.