I recently responded to an agent in another state with a client who has a house to sell in my area. She just called me regarding listing the property. She said she already had the file uploaded to Equator, she would do all of the Equator processing & she wants the buyer of this property to pay her a processing fee that would be disclosed in the MLS & on the HUD. This isn't typically done in this area.

After accepting one referral from a short sale processing company & my client losing their home because the short sale wasn't approved due to a processing fee being on the HUD & the company refusing to release my client from the contract with them, I am hesitant to deal with this again. My client, the seller would have been responsible to pay them had we taken the fee off the HUD & they simply didn't have the money. 

I do all of my own short sale processing & honestly wouldn't trust someone from out of state to process another short sale for me. They don't know the area to be able to fight the appraisal or BPO if needed.  Not to mention that we have a lot of short sales on the market & a buyer could buy any of those others without paying an additional fee.In my eyes, in the event the bank doesn't approve of this fee, the buyer would have to pay this out of their pocket & it would be an additional fee. From everything that I have read on these forums, banks typically will not approve of these processing fees.

Has anyone else run across other Realtors requesting processing fees from buyers on a short sale referral?  The call made me very uneasy. When I expressed this to the other Realtor and told her I'd have to consult an attorney & possibly my board, she got a little huffy & replied with "I guess this referral isn't right for you."  I guess not. I'm hired by other Realtors both in my brokerage and others to assist with their short sales & have never asked the buyer to pay my fee. Typically the other Realtor and I co-list & we split the commission. They either A. handle the sale aspect & I handle the short sale aspect, or B. work with me on the short sale & use it as a learning experience to learn how the short sale process works. Or, they simply ask me to do everything & collect a referral fee. One other agent hired me to handle all of the Equator tasks & processing for them, but they paid me a fee out of their commission. I would appreciate everyone's comments as long as they are not negative or putting other people down for their opinions. Thanks!