OK, you have the termite repair in your contract, so what do the agents say? Time to earn their commission, no?

Just for starters, if the deal falls through, seller needs to return earnest money, disclose defects that are now known to future buyers, pay RA commission.

Great question, we are waiting to hear back from our realtor and attorney. I emailed them that section with a big red circle around it.

Correction in my post: ...sellers are obligated to list the termite damage to the next potential buyer because if a defect is found, the sellers must declare it.

"if the deal falls through, seller needs to return earnest money, disclose defects that are now known to future buyers, pay RA commission." - Is it true?

May be the question should be rephrased as "under what condition a RA commission should be paid in a real-estate transaction?" Thanks in advance for the inputs.

Depends on what is in the seller/agent contract, but if it's a standard contract, chances are that the commission is due.

NY: when is sales commission due

And: "The judge cited a Court of Appeals decision which held that the rule
permitting a broker to recover commission if the seller "willfully
defaults" applies only if the seller and the broker's prospective buyer
had already entered a sales contract, and the seller's "default" within
the meaning of the rule would have reference solely to a breach of that
sales contract."

What I'm hearing here is that the seller has been limping along in this house, not doing *necessary* maintenance. Price reduction or you walk.

The buyer's damages may be contractually lmited to return of the earnest money but the agent has lost a sale and commission when the seller breaches the contract. Unless there is a provision to the contrary, they would have a claim for the lost commission just under general contrract law. The seller's agent's claim would depend on the listing agreement, but they may have a claim also. It could get more expensive not to repair.

Exactly, and that's why the agents should get involved.

I was actually surprised to read that agents may also claim compensation when a buyer willfully breaches a contract.

I am seeing the seller is obligated to fix/repair. Not to use buyers company to fix or to guarantee for a year for 1K. We bought a place with some termite holes. Cost us about 50 bucks to fix. Seller offered to fix, but we didn't want anything covered up if it was more than we thought it was.

You're right. Seller is obligated to fix it. If buyer wants a 1 year warranty, maybe they can compromise.

Sorry, should have added the real estate agent is the representing both of us if it matters.

In buying a house, or most anything else, I give the seller's assertions little to no weight unless I have a long association with them that would lead me to trust them. Even then it's a mistake-- even if their intentions are good their expertise often is not. Instead I inspect in detail and figure out what I'm buying. I want an objective evaluation, not the sellers opinion about stuff. When defects are found the last thing I want is their lowball fly-by-night handyman doing the repairs. I would much prefer to take a fairly low estimate of the repair cost off the price and then get the work done properly and completely, generally DIY in my case.

Has the agent pulled in somoene to assist? That is what I see happen where the agent has been working with both -- to address the confict of interest that is worse than usual in that situation. The house next door to me was sold by a agent representing both sides. I think the seller did pretty well, but it doesn't appeaer the buyers got a good inspection or had the repairs done if they did. There was apparent wood rot. The next buyers dealt with that and rodent problems when they bought the house. That's the worst situation I've seen, but when buyers and sellers hae the same agent, it can create problems and they generally seem to be the buyers problems.

The best realtors bring in an associate to work with the buyer so even though the commission or portion they earn is paid by the seller (generally true), the say agent is not trying to represent both parties through all these issues to take it from offer to closing.

I always found it interesting that the realtor we had (highly recommended guy, which in turn we highly recommend) says he'll never be an agent for both seller and buyer again. It happened once in his reasonably long career, and he says it's impossible to adequately represent both clients in this situation. (This came up because we were interested in a house he represented for the seller, and he gave us several alternatives, which we weren't too fond of, since we wanted him. Fortunately something else came on the market that we loved at first sight. So he did walk the walk.)

This could also be a time to consider the RA kicking in to get the deal done...The RA is getting this both ways...$$$..cough some up IMO.

RA has done nothing to even attempt to make this happen. They came back refusing most of the work, so we are walking away. Oh well, everything happens for a reason.

I think you made the right call. I suspect the sellers didn't think you would walk away.

Agreed. I tend to think an even better house is in your future.

Are you considering getting a new agent? I think yours should have done more work, especially for double the commission! I do think it was the right decision to back out.

Yeah, I think it
is time after seeing nothing helpful was being done on their end with this

I believe in NY that the RA agent is always obligated to the seller.

John, you did the right thing. Too many things just smelled fishy. You might want to instead look for a Buyer's Agent next time. A buyer's agent works for you.

BTW: When the right house does come along and the close is smooth, please come back and let us know.

When I was looking many years ago, we lost out on a house we thought was perfect. And we had already sold our house and had to be out less than 2 months later. 2 weeks after losing out on our "perfect" house, we fell into our "dream" house instead. Almost double the size for the same price and in an even nicer part of town.

That is awesome, thanks. I am sure we will find something soon, don't want to settle for something.

Don't b surprised if seller calls you back but PLS stand your ground. You seem reasonable in Your requests and have worked hard for your $ so should get what you want

They have done that twice already during the price negotiation. We just couldn't meet their number or timeline and had to say "sorry, but good luck with sale" and then got a call 1-2 weeks later with a sudden change of heart.

NightOwl wrote:

"This could also be a time to consider the RA kicking in to get the deal done...The RA is getting this both ways...$$$..cough some up IMO."

If the deal is not worth it to get done for both the buyers and the sellers, then why is it worth it for the agent to go against the wishes of both?

nc,

It's just like when you go into an expensive restaurant and don't want to pay 50 bucks for a steak. You usually ask the waiter to chip in some money to get the deal done so that you can get the steak that you want and the restaurant gets the mark up that they want. The waiter just needs to facilitate it, no matter what.

I'm not the only one that does that, am I?

An analogy is false if the things being compared are not analogous. The waiter has invested little time and no money to get you to the dinner table and loses little to nothing if you get up and walk away after looking at the menu.

I know of some realtors who have kicked in part of their commission to get a deal closed. For example, I have a co-worker who bought a higher end house (well for my area) and the appraisal feel short by 5K. Neither the buyer or seller would budge, and so the realtors made up the difference to get the sale closed. However, that sort of thing was freely offered by both realtors and not something requested by the buyers and sellers. Both were willing to walk away.

And to be honest, I only think the only time it works for a realtor to kick in part of their commission is when it is their suggestion.

OK, so are you saying that both seller and buyer thought that the agreed on deal was bad? So both were unreasonable? Or are you saying that the deal really wasn't worth for either of them?

But wasn't the RA instrumental in getting this deal set up and almost to closing (price, condition of property, contingencies)? So, did the RA fail both seller, buyer, either, or neither?

We only have one side of this story ...

I am not convinced that the seller is being difficult. He is just standing his ground. So is the buyer. Why should the agent do anything other that just wait and see what happens with these two stubborn parties?

But maybe no one is stubborn, each knows their limit and have reached it. A Realtor kicking in money doesn't mean he failed, just means the money kicked in is worth it to close the deal. None of this negotiation means any one party is stubborn or a failure. This is a business negotiation, each person does as he sees fit.

If the realtor OFFERS to chip in, then that means they think it's worth it to get the deal done. Nothing wrong with that.

If they don't offer to chip in, then that means that they don't think this deal is worth pursuing. Just like the waiter who isn't going to bother chipping in for your steak. It isn't worth it for them. They'll just wait for the next person who will pay the actual price.

The realtor is losing little to nothing if this deal falls through. Maybe a little bit of his time, but the realtor is the only one who can determine what that's worth to him.

The realtor is losing out on the sale of this house, along with the sale of our house.

He's not losing out on the sale of this house. Another buyer will come along. The sale is just being delayed.

Is he the selling agent for your house too? If so, are you dropping him and going with someone else? Is he aware of this?

You are correct, but he has been trying to sell that house for almost a year now, so he will now restart. It will sell no doubt. Yes, we have gone thru that discussion already and he understood why

Sorry but I have a HUGE prob with same agent for both, all other issues set aside. He's looking out for your interests or seller's but can't do both as by definition it is an adversarial relationship between B and S. You want low he wants high.

I was concerned about that in the beginning, but during negotiations the realtor was actually very helpful in getting a price sorted out and at that time felt he was doing a great job. Our counter offers were going to be much higher, but he suggested going lower on each and it worked in our favored. Maybe he was tired of trying to sell the house for months and knew the lower price was the right number. Not sure.

And yet you fired him... for what reason? Because you and the seller could not agree on a few repair items. How in the heck is that the agent's fault? You fired him because he did not offer his money to fix your and the seller's repair issues. And that is a lame excuse to fire someone, who, even as you say, did a fine job of representing your best interests when negotiating the deal. Pretty lame.

Conflict of interest. In my state, agent can't represent buyer and seller.

NC it really is a conflict of interest.

Has nothing to do with the topic being discussed.

"You fired him because he did not offer his money to fix your and the seller's repair issues." Ah, but it wasn't "his" money yet, was it?

NC, the OP didn't say the agent should have offered some of his comission to close the deal, other people brought it up. And as far as I understand, the OP didn't decide not to get the house because of money issues, but because he stopped trusting the seller not to conceal deeper issues with the house. Because the agent handled both the buyer and the seller, it became hard to tell how much of the problems were on his side. Maybe none of this was his fault, but that's why it's not a good idea to represent both the buyer and the seller.

NC the agent wasn't fired, the OP decided not to accept the p;resent terms. Nothing lame, take off your agent hat.

Cmarlin, the OP says he is not going to now use the agent to sell his current home.

I agree with the conflict of interest as far as dual agency goes.

Right now he doesn't have a home to move to, that is why I thought he was using him to sell his house.

My concern is the small market the OP wants to buy in. Reading all these posts makes me think I am an easy buyer, if I knew my small market had very limited inventory, I would work to buy the house irregardless of the non-fixes, they wouldn't be important to me, I'd fix them myself after purchase. Most important to me is location, I don't mind fixing to my taste. I understand other people don't want to do that, of course that is their right. I also son't mind dual agency, I've done that several times with no problem.

cmarlin20 -- spot on

cmarlin, would you feel that way if the fixes were extensive enough that they would put the house over the price of other houses in the neighborhood? It sounded like there were too many hidden defects not being disclosed that might have turned the house into a money pit.

Can't say exactly what I'd do in this hypothetical situation. I might pay slightly over market value if I still favored the location and knew the house had good potential, my thought might be if I plan to stay over time I'll get my money back. I know that answer is different for everyone, depending on the circumstances. I just think many people on here quickly tell people to move on, there are lots of other houses out there, for many that is not the case.