I’m adding details that might or might not be relevant, so please excuse my ignorance with real estate practices.
About one month ago, my mother decided put her house up for sale with a real estate agent. My mother is aging quickly and the house was becoming too much for her to handle. The agent brought several prospective buyers to see the house, but none of them offered a price anywhere close to what my mother was asking.
She and I were sitting outside the house one evening and a man walked over and asked about the house. We’ll call him “Joe.” They had a brief discussion about the property and my mother referred him to the agent.
After haggling over the price with “Joe” for a week or two, the agent suggested she place the house on multiple listings and increase the asking price by $15,000. The agent told “Joe” this and the day before it was due to go on multiple listings, my mother and “Joe” came to a verbal agreement on a price. The closing date was set for several months from now (allowing time for my mother to find another home).
A week went by, “Joe” made an appointment with an engineer to look at the place and suddenly, and mom got cold feet. :smack: We had a family discussion about the pros & cons. She had not seen anything on the market that was to her liking, wasn’t sure this was something she wanted to do, etc. Too many cons basically, so we made a family decision that she should not make this major life change at a time when we were all so uncertain.
Note: I was uncertain/not happy about it from the very beginning, but I was over ruled; the market was/is good right now and she feared that this would not continue considering the economy.
So, mom sends the agent an email stating that she had changed her mind and to let her know what to send in reimbursement for her time and effort and also to have Joe call her so that she can pay part of the cost for the engineer, etc.
Well, the agent replied in short, she wants the full commission for her time and effort, even though the sale never took place. :eek: My mother nearly had a stroke. She was extremely upset, to say the least.
Some details that I have discovered since this occurred:
~ My mother had a twenty-minute conversation with the agent a day or two prior to my mother sending the email. She told the agent she was concerned that she would be unable to do this and was worried about the whole thing. The agent told her “that is natural” but never mentioned that she required full payment of commission if she bailed out.
~ According to my mother, the initial contract she signed with this agent was a homemade form that was not detailed, simply had information on the house, the asking price, etc. There was nothing on this contract stating that the full commission would be required if she pulled out early. The agent stated that she would send a copy of the contract and my mother offered to make a copy for her since she has the printer/copier/fax machine. The agent stated that there was something she had to do with it before the copy was made. My mother asked for a copy twice and was told it “was in the mail.” She has never received a copy of the initial contract.
~ In addition, when they decided to put the house on multiple listings according to the agent the initial contract was voided and my mother signed a new one – that new contract stated that if we bailed out early the full price of commission would be paid. However, the house was never placed on multiple listings.
~ I may be pulling at strings here, but frankly, it was my mother who found the buyer or rather the buyer found her. My mother being the honest woman that she is, referred “Joe” to the agent, rather than scrap the whole deal with the agent and avoid paying the commission.
~ And lastly, there was no written contract between “Joe” and my mother, just a handshake. We have no idea what the engineer report was – there were some issues about the water heater and the flashing (sp?) on the roof, etc. But there were some discussions about the first floor rental apartment between the engineer and “Joe” that she was not privy to.
I feel obligated to say that she is not trying to pull a fast one. She was willing to give this person compensation for the time, but she was unaware that she was required to pay the full commission since it was never mentioned on the original contract that she never received a copy of.
My mother is beside herself. She has no idea where she is going to come up with the cash and I am concerned. Is there anything that can be done to make everyone happy? If I have failed to mention some inportant detail please let me know. I am at my wits end and would like this resolved soon.