To Meddle or Not to Meddle, That is the Question - Part 2
In To Meddle or Not to Meddle, That is the Question - Part 1, we discovered that the seller's boyfriend, Butinsky, caused the sale of his girlfriend's house to go off the rails. The contract was terminated within the option period and the listing agent removed the home from MLS.
Fast forward about three weeks.
Betty, my buyer, contacts me and tells me Butinsky has sent her a letter asking if she is still interested in purchasing the house. He tells her that since Sally Seller has fired the listing agent, Betty can purchase the house for less since there's no real estate commission, and Betty can take that extra money that she'd be saving and have money for repairs.
Fortunately, Betty knows that although Sally no longer has an agent representing her, Betty does. And Betty actually wants representation. She shared the letter with me and I charted a course of action because she did, still, want to purchase the house.
The first thing I had to do was to make sure that the listing really was terminated and that the listing agent did not have a "protection period" in his listing agreement with Sally. When I called him, he said there was no protection period and confirmed that he was no longer representing Sally.
The next thing I did was call Sally, bypassing Butinksy. I told her that I was still representing Betty and that any and all communications had to go through me. I asked her to meet me at my office WITH A COPY OF THE LISTING AGREEMENT and a COPY OF THE TERMINATION. I wanted to see for myself that there was no protection period and that the listing had been properly canceled.
Sally showed up with Butinsky in tow. There were several HUGE problems. HUGE for the listing agent, not huge for Betty or her agent (me).
- There was no termination of the listing paperwork.
- Indeed, there was no protection period. Even if the listing agent had written one in ...
- The listing agreement had NOT BEEN SIGNED BY EITHER PARTY! It should not have even been in MLS!
- Since there was no listing agreement, there was no need for a termination of the listing agreement.
So once we got all that out of the way, I got Sally to sign the Registration Agreement Between Broker and Owner so that she'd be paying the real estate commission owed to the buyer's brokerage, then presented Betty's revised offer on the house. Everyone (including Butinsky) was finally in agreement and the house sold.
The first time the boyfriend meddled, the transaction was terminated.
Due to the boyfriend's meddling the second time (by sending the letter), the transaction was resuscitated and the house did sell.
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