Estate agent successfully sues client for £318,000 commission after sale

A woman who refused to pay her upmarket estate agent its £318,000 sales fee and was then sued has lost the court case and now faces a £520,000 legal bill.

Stately homes interior designer Tiggy Butler had been looking to sell her stucco luxury mansion ‘fixer upper’ overlooking Regent’s Park for some time and turned to Rokstone, headed up by industry figure Becky Fatemi (pictured), to land the deal.

She found a Saudi buyer prepared to pay £10.3 million for the property and the deal was inked in February 2021.

But Butler subsequently claimed that the property had been sold for less than its market value, saying she was short-changed by some £1.75 million and, subsequently, declining to pay Rokstone’s commission invoice, saying the firm had ‘missed clear chances to sell the property for more’.

Fatemi disagreed and sued Butler at a hearing settled yesterday at the Central London County Court, where both women appeared during a five-day trial.

Butler must now pay the original fee as well as Fatemi’s £210,000 legal bill, plus her own.

Judge Alan Johns cleared Rokstone of negligence in failing to contact a rich vendor she claimed would have snapped up her property, the Mirror has reported.

The property involved was first marketed in 2016 for £14.5 million but failed to find a buyer during the ensuing months and years. Butler turned down an £11 million offer more recently introduced by Fatemi, who was instructed in 2019, and it remained unsold until the next year.

Fatemi’s lawyers say the judgement is a ‘complete vindication’ of her decision to sue Butler.

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