Brokers Fee - not paying?

My wife and I used an agent to find us an apartment. We learned a couple of days before we moved in much of what she told us about the apartment was wrong. We tried to get out of the lease but could not. However, after much hassling, the landlord allowed us to break the lease as long as we were able to replace ourselves. We have done this and are now moving out next week. My questions are as follows?


1. What happens if we do not pay the commission to the agent that helped us?

2. Does this than go to a collection agency?

3. If it were to go to a collection agency, will this hurt our credit in our home country?


We feel the agent acted terribly unethincal and just wanted us to sign a contract. We feel this is a breach of responsibility and she does not deserve a fee.


If anyone has any information they can share on this subject it would be much appreciated.


Thank you!

can u give some examples what the agent said that turned out not to be true?


usually property agents are like that and i am sure they can sue you for the fee (you must have signed something saying that you use the agent for a fee). so better have a really exceptional case...

Thank you for your responses. I did sign something saying that I would pay an agent fee. However, I believe there was a breach in the contract as the agent did not follow through on her end. The details are concrete and would rather not get him to them in this thread (but would be willing to explain them to a judge if need be). I posted my message to see if any one could would help me understand the consequences of not paying the agent fee.


I would like to add one more question to the original post...


Is there an agency in Hong Kong that gives advice on these situations?


Thanks again for the replies.

You can lodge yr complaint with EAA which is regulator of property agents in HK. But your issue is you found sth wrong with your rented flat and now thinking of not paying the commission. Usually, the standard leasing agreement signed between u and landlord and the standard entrsuted agreement signed between u and agent are the kind of really standard one, on the document itself, it is difficult to show anything wrong on the agent. The commission is rewarded for the agent helping tanent and landlord finding another one and reaching the deal, the fact is the deal did make even you eventually find it out no as you learnt or told. Basically u have to pay commission but you can sue the agent company and agent on deception (this kind of thing), due to the dishonestly misleding, u entered into the contract and sue for the nullify the contract. See how must u want to go. In short, it all depends on the amount involved, u may complain to the agent co and saying sth misleading and complain to EAA, maybe there is bargain for commission, if u want totally forget about commission, maybe a bit difficult.

Lets shift this to property