Fee
1.5% of the sale price, plus tax
Payable on completion, and on nothing else. No listing fee, no renewal fee, no charge if the house does not sell.
Twelve instructions a year
The whole offer, on one page.
One partner from the valuation to the keys, a fee that does not move, and the part most offices leave until the second meeting printed here instead.
Terms of instruction
One page, and no second page.
Nothing here is renegotiated upward later
Photography
One photographer, one day, included
Shot in the light the rooms actually get. We do not bill it, and we do not re-bill it if the house is relaunched in the spring.
The particular
One hundred and twenty words, signed
Written by the partner who walked the house, printed, and sent to you to correct before any buyer sees it.
Where it goes
The private list first, then the catalogue
Registered buyers receive the particular by post eleven days before a single public entry appears. One portal entry follows from day twelve.
Term
Twelve weeks, sole
It does not renew by silence. If it has not sold by the Friday of week twelve, you are free without a letter or a conversation.
Withdrawal
At any time, for nothing
Two vendors withdrew in the twelve months to August 2026. Neither was invoiced, and both still have the photographs.
Claire HavilonPartner · terms as at 1 September 2026
What we decline
Four times last year, we said no.
Twelve houses is not modesty, it is arithmetic: two partners, accompanied viewings, and a written particular each. Taking a thirteenth would cost the other twelve.
Why the number is twelve-
Refusal 01
A house we cannot price to within four per cent
If there is no comparable sale within a mile and eighteen months, our number is a guess dressed as evidence. An office that guesses in public is no use to you.
-
Refusal 02
An instruction shared with two other agents
Three agents means three guides, and buyers read the lowest one as the real number. We would rather lose the instruction than start the sale below it.
-
Refusal 03
A guide set above the evidence to win the instruction
Every agent has been asked to. The house then sits, the price is cut in week seven, and it sells for less than the honest figure would have taken in week three.
-
Refusal 04
A house we would not send a buyer we like to see
This is the only one that is a judgement rather than a rule. We have used it once, and we would use it again.
Lot 04, three days before it was launched, in the hour we ask every vendor for
What it costs
A sale at six million dollars.
Worked in full, including the lines that are nothing
- Fee on completion$90,000
- Photography, one dayIncluded
- The written particular, printedIncluded
- Catalogue entry and the private listIncluded
- One portal entry from day twelveIncluded
- Withdrawal, at any weekNothing
- Payable, in total$90,000
The two quotes a Montecito vendor usually receives beside ours are 2.5% with a marketing contribution of $4,500, and 2% with the photography invoiced separately. We have printed ours here so the conversation can start at the second question.
Week zero
It starts with an hour in the house.
A partner walks it, measures it, and writes to you two days later with one number and the sales it rests on. There is no charge and no second visit from anyone else.