OT: Real Estate Agents and Fees

Verbal agreements can be as binding as written - depending on your jurisdiction. If she gave him cause to expect to have an exclusive right to find her a house then she may well be obligated to pay him a commission if he assisted in any way.

On the other hand if she sends a registered letter saying that she no longer accepts him as her agent that might stop his claim.

She hasn't bought anything and if she does not buy a property that he showed her or viewed while he was still acting as her agent while she was looking then I believe that might negate a percentage.

A lawyer is who she needs to consult with now, cheaper than finding out later, eh?

John :-#(#

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The fee is not really her problem directly. The buyer doesn't pay the real estate commission, the seller does. I think he just wanted to toss a turd in the punch bowl. This could make it harder to work with another agent.

Once all is said and done, I expect a blog will appear somewhere that will tell all and name names.

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Rick C

Real estate is state specific law. Your question is dumb.

I stopped at "I'm financially helping a friend by a house. She..."

Did she say anything about the funds needing to be forwarded to a Nigerian bank account, by any chance?

Is this a problem buying or selling? The two paragraphs above are contradictory.

Did the agent show her the house before she fired him? If so, she's stuck. If not, she's probably OK. Either way, this is something to ask her lawyer.

No. Not at all. Report him to the board of realty. He deserves to have his license threatened.

You're treading on really thin ice. I'd never sign such an agreement but she did.

Your misogyny is showing again.

Yep, what I got from just the first paragraph is that the whole thing stinks of three day old fish already.

I'd bail on this situation

I probably wouldn't financially help a a male friend buy a house, either, not because I hate men or am a cheapskate but because there are a lot of ways a situation like that can cause a lot of drama and friendships get ruined that way. Should one not hold female friends to the same standard?

PS: it's already causing drama; Rickman's post is already full of drama and the house hasn't even been purchased yet.

It's already happening - see what I mean?

That's why you went out of your way to explicitly included the pronoun (and only the pronoun) from the second sentence - "She...". Your misogyny is quite clear.

This is an issue for her current agent, if any, and the seller's agent.

The seller pays the commission. He may want a quarter of the commission, but unless she signed up with him as a buyer's agent for a specific amount of time, he'd have a hard time collecting anything for houses that he didn't bring her to.

OTOH, I'd hate to be an agent that takes a client around to multiple properties and then have the client buy a house with a different agent.

I spoke with a new agent we may work with and he made several points worth mentioning. He confirmed that without a written agreement there is no obligation to pay the old agent. But in the meantime the old agent wrote my friend an email that "asked" for a quarter of the typical 3% buyer agent commission. He didn't have a written agreement or he would have mentioned it. So think we are good.

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Rick C

If she buys one of the places he showed her, sure it would be unfair if he was not rewarded.

If she buys some other place no.

"I was your customer. Your attidude unsettles me. I am no-longer your customer" seems like a good way to end it.

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If I ever have a conversation with him I may tell him that, but she will see this person again in family settings as he is a friend and gets invited to various events.

I really don't get how people let others walk over them because of not wanting to create confrontation. This realtor, in my opinion, has cost her significant money. I would have put up a fight about the money, *then* dumped him. But it's all water under the bridge now.

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Rick C

99% of interpersonal drama is unnecessary and self-manufactured. You are having conflict with this agent because it's really her battle, that for whatever reason it seems you've made a choice to make your own. But make no mistake, the choice was your own to fight it on her behalf.

Basically the fact that the agent is also a member of her family ties one's hands immediately, limits your options, and makes it extremely likely that one is going to get wrapped up in someone else's family drama and conflict. It's a bad call.

You could've simply walked on it (and probably still should) and there would have been zero consequences other than the possibility of more interpersonal drama, which you could also choose to eject on.

If your friend wants to get upset or call you a bad person or bail out for wanting to eject on a situation that stresses you and makes you uncomfortable then good riddance, she wasn't a real friend.

I believe it is *you* who likes and appears to be creating the drama. I asked a question about real estate, ethics and the law. You also create a lot of noise regarding this inserting your own facts that are not at all apparent.

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Rick C

Hey, I guess when one asks for free advice you get what you get. My advice was that the situation was entirely avoidable. Take it or leave it...;-)