Every agent in Malta is paid by the seller. Except ours.
That single sentence is the whole business. What follows is the arithmetic behind it, the fee in figures, and what happens if we fail to earn it.
2.5%
Of the price you actually pay. Fixed in writing before we begin, paid at closing, the same for everybody.
We hold no listings and take nothing from a vendor, ever. The house is retained by the buyer and by nobody else, which is the only arrangement under which the person negotiating for you actually wants the price to fall.
Who pays whom
The agent showing you the house is the seller’s agent.
- The vendor lists the house and agrees a commission of about 5% — 3% on an exclusive.
- You arrive. The viewing is free, the agent is charming, and you are shown three houses.
- All three are on their books. The better one, two streets away, is on somebody else’s.
- You ask them to negotiate. Every euro they win for you is a euro off their own fee.
- The commission is paid out of the price. You funded it without being told the figure.
Free, and unrepresented.
You retain the house. The house answers to you.
- You retain Hypomo at 2.5%, stated in writing before any work begins.
- We take nothing from any vendor, on any house, ever.
- We search the whole of Malta and Gozo — the listed market, the quiet one, and the houses that were never going to be advertised.
- We negotiate on your side of the table. Every euro off the price is yours.
- Nothing is due until the keys are in your hand. No keys, no fee.
Paid for, and represented.
If we fail you, we pay for it.
- The Ninety-Day Search
- Your home in front of you within ninety days, or you owe nothing. Brief us properly and the right house is in front of you inside ninety days — most files close inside thirty. If we fail, you end the engagement and no fee is due. We would rather say so plainly than search forever.
- The Clean Title Guarantee
- If we miss something a proper search should have caught, the fee comes back. Ground rent, a scheduling or permit restriction, a structural or damp defect a competent survey would have found — if we fail to put it in front of you before you commit, we refund the fee in full. This is the one that matters buying abroad, and it is a bet on our own diligence rather than on a vendor's mood.
- No Keys, No Fee
- Nothing is due until the keys are in your hand. No retainer, no hourly rate, no fee for the search, no fee for the viewings, no fee for the negotiation. If the search ends without a purchase, you owe us nothing at all. We are paid on the doorstep or not at all.
All three are written into the engagement letter, in those words. None of them is a marketing sentence we would rather you did not read closely.
The arithmetic
№ 31 in the register — Ta’ Lellux, in Għarb — closed at 4% under asking. Taking that as the illustration:
| The house | Our fee (2.5%) | A 4% negotiation | You are ahead by | Seller’s agent earns |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| €1,000,000 | €25,000 | €40,000 | €15,000 | €50,000 |
| €1,500,000 | €37,500 | €60,000 | €22,500 | €75,000 |
| €2,500,000 | €62,500 | €100,000 | €37,500 | €125,000 |
The 4% is an illustration drawn from a real file, not a forecast and not a promise — no honest house forecasts a negotiation, and you should distrust any agency that does. What we will promise is above, and it is deliberately about the things we control rather than a vendor’s mood. The last column is not ours and never has been; it is shown because it is the money that pays the person standing opposite you.
- The whole-market search — listed, quiet, and never advertised
- Off-market soundings through notaries, architects and other houses' back rooms
- Every candidate visited, measured and photographed before you travel
- One concierge, the same person from the first letter to the keys
- The negotiation, conducted in writing on your side of the table
- Konvenju, AIP permit and notary, coordinated through to the final deed
- Keys handed over by a member of the house
- Stamp dutyabout 5%Paid to government. Reliefs exist for first-time and Gozo buyers.
- The notary1–2%Your notary, chosen by you. We coordinate; we do not appoint.
- Searches and registrationvariableTitle searches, plans, registration.
- AIP permitwhere it appliesNon-residents buying outside a Special Designated Area.
- Architect or structural surveywhere you want oneWe will tell you when we think you want one.
None of these is ours to keep. Figures are the ordinary case and are indicative: they follow the law, and the law changes. We estimate the lot for you in writing before you commit to anything.
The questions people actually ask
Why would I pay a fee when the other agent is free?
They are not free. They are paid 5% by the seller — on a €1,000,000 house that is €50,000, and it comes out of the price you pay. What you get for nothing is a guide. What you do not get is anybody whose interest is served by you paying less.
The question is not whether there is a fee. It is whether anyone in the room is paid to argue for you.
So the seller's agent is working against me?
Not maliciously. Structurally. They are retained by the vendor, paid a percentage of the price you agree, and every euro you negotiate off reduces their own fee. Most of them are decent people in an indecent position.
They also cannot show you a house that is not on their books, and they will not tell you about the one two streets away that is quietly for sale and better.
Is the 2.5% negotiable?
No, and that is the point. A fee that moves under pressure was never a fee, it was an opening position — and a house that discounts its own price to win you will discount its attention once it has.
It is the same figure for every client, printed in the engagement letter before any work begins, and it does not change afterwards.
When do I pay?
At closing, when the keys are in your hand. Not on signature, not on the first viewing, not as a retainer. If the search ends without a purchase, there is nothing to pay.
What if I find the house myself?
Then you have not needed us and there is no fee. The engagement letter covers houses we introduce you to. We are not in the business of charging for a coincidence.
Do you take anything from the seller, or from anyone else?
Nothing from sellers — that is the whole architecture of the house and the reason the arithmetic above works. If we introduce you to a mortgage intermediary, a notary or a property manager and receive anything for it, we tell you in writing at the time.
Is there a floor?
The register begins, as a rule, at €1,000,000. Below that a search is handled by the Annexe, by a junior concierge, at precisely the same standard and on the same terms. We do not have a cheap service. We have a smaller one.
What happens on the first call?
Twelve questions, none of which is your budget — that is question thirteen, asked later and quietly. If Hypomo is the wrong house for your search we will say so on that call and tell you where to go instead. Open a file →
Six places remain.
The house carries forty searches at a time, one concierge to each, because one person can only open so many doors personally. Three questions, about a minute, and a reply within one business day.
Open a file