Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Tni LeBlanc (805) 878-9879 on February 12, 2013 at 11:27am

And of course every seller, buyer, and agent should get their own independent legal advice when presented with this situation.

Permalink Reply by George Kenner on February 12, 2013 at 11:28am

Tni,   very well said..... One issue possibly overlooked is  who was / is representing the BUYER mentioned here?   A mother would have been a problem for the vast majority of lenders I have dealt with.  (not that it should matter but it does).  A private party representing themself would be even harder to get through a lender.   I think I would have advised the client to pass on that type of offer as I would think the possibility to close it would be deminished.

Also there appears to be "investigation" with the seller directly, which could be interference with an already in place contract.  What I have learned is there is always a counter claim to any claim. 

 

I once saw something like this and the other side figured out that the CAR contract used without paying a copywrite fee.  Thus it cast the accusing party  in a dim light.  They started with dirty hands and went down hill from there.  How do you believe someone who will not pay the copywrite fee for the contract?

Permalink Reply by Karin Christa on April 2, 2013 at 7:19am

Kim, this is interesting in that I too worked with an agent a couple of months ago and the majority of her listings (short sale) whereby she represented both the buyer and seller although we were getting calls all day from other agents willing to make offers. She would not return calls - I have since left the brokerage but I would be interested how you are processing this, what is the end result.

Permalink Reply by joe beauchamp on April 2, 2013 at 2:49pm

In most, if not all states, the listing agent is obligated to present all offers to his client the seller. Most agents are realtors and have a healthy fear of the board of realtors for good reason, like quickly losing their license, etc. I suggest you contact them. Also, the state banking dept could be interested because this is a short sale - and they seem to work (for better and (why bother with "or") worse) with the state real estate board.

Now, if the seller is under contract, his agent still should be obligated to make him aware of better offers (I can see nuisance offers - never thought if the agent must show worse offers to the seller..), however, the buyer, seller and agents are obligated to the contract in play and should be properly branded as scumbags if they try to break a contract made in good faith, no?

So, is your complaint that the seller is now contractually obligated to another buyer and you want what that buyer is getting regardless of their sales agreement? Or are you actually saying that the seller is not under contract and the agent refuses to allow you to present your offer to the seller? I know of agents who do not present offers to sellers when they know them to be lowball offers or from buyers who do not honor contracts, seem to fail to get financing when it is time to close, etc. - eating up everyone's time, money and energy.  I don't know what these various boards do in those cases - I'm guessing it is a judgment call.

As a matter of fact, most investors only want 1 sales agreement per file at a time. They are a 3rd party to the sale, they don't trump common law and they hate dealing with short sales so aren't interested in quadrupling their pleasure by dealing with more than 1 buyer at a time.

If the seller has not seen your offer, how can you say that the seller wants to sell to you? I assume this is not fiction and you have, indeed, made your offer known to the seller. Is the seller comatose and saying nothing to his agent about your deal? Is the seller jumping up and down saying he wants to deal with you and the agent is refusing to honor the seller's request? That is a pretty serious dereliction of duty, no? A broker can't sit still for that - his license is on the line. So, I'm guessing that you would like to illegally break the current contract that the seller has with a buyer because it suits your desires, right?  Well, if the servicer is NSTAR, you have a good chance of that happening anyway - or all participants will die of old age first.

Assuming that the property is under contract and that you are an above board ethical person, and that the investor has the normal "one at a time" rule, you won't get anywhere trying to bypass the whole short sale mechanism of the servicer and the investor to screw over another buyer and get more money to the investor - agents try to get good deals done all the time w/o screwing over someone and this mechanism throws away good money. You should try for a backup contract position. That would give the listing agent the chance to drop the current buyer when the agreement expires, etc. But then you have probably horribly alienated this agent so that he will do anything to avoid getting you under contract. All things would require seller cooperation, though. So, if the seller really likes you, he can refuse to sign an extension or any change required for the current contract by the bank, etc. and force the contract to die. Then he can go under contract with you (where, uh, this agent will do everything in his power to kill the deal, I'm guessing - and it doesn't take much in short sales - they take a ton of work from the agents and extremely little for the servicer to destroy things).

If I have it right, you need to make nice with this agent and explain the things that you didn't understand or you can probably just move on to another property. (Banks blow hundreds of thousands on short sale deals all the time - your $20K can mean the world to a lot of sellers and buyers but it is just lunch cocktail cash to bankers - they do not care, that is unless they bring it up as a point of argument against you.)

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