How would you feel if you were fighting a traffic ticket and your lawyer calls you the morning of the trial and advises you that s/he can’t appear at trail with you? Of course s/he has briefed the City attorney and assures you that your side will be presented to the judge.

What’s wrong with that picture? Would you agree that there is almost nothing good about it? Of course you would. Then why would any buyer's agent allow his or her client to be put in a similar situation? I'm talking about the presentation of the offer, when the listing agent directs the buyer's agent to drop the offer off at the office, and the listing agent will present it. There is an exact parallel between my example about fighting a traffic ticket and the buyer’s agent who relinquishes the offer to the listing side and says something to the effect of: “Let me know what happens.”

This isn't a radical buyer broker's point of view; it is a concept of representation when it comes to presenting offers. Article 3.1 of the NAR Rules clearly provides for the right of the buyer’s broker to present the offer.

For the listing agent to present your offer is unfair to both the buyer and the seller. If the buyer's agent isn't present when the offer is made, an opportunity is lost forever to report back to the buyer what the seller's response was. If the listing agent's seller

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were to ask some pointed questions about the buyer or why the offer is structured the way it is, there are just two possible responses that the listing agent can make: 1.) lie to seller because the listing agent was not involved and had no direct contact with the buyer; or 2.) be honest and say, "I don’t know."

In either instance the listing agent may be falling way short of the reasonable expectations of the seller. When an listing agent forbids the buyer’s agent to present an offer, s/he may have acted outside of their authority granted by the seller. When the buyer’s agent arbitrarily turns the offer over, s/he too may have fallen short of the mark by not acting within a reasonable expectation of the buyer.

Isn’t it time that we drop these barriers and reach out to each other so the buyer and seller can get on with the buying and selling of property? Before I continued with the practice of interfering with the agenda of a buyer or seller, I might want to see how my E & O carrier feels about it. I would hate to have my carrier avoid a claim based on the fact that it concluded that my actions misrepresented my relationship to the buyer, seller or to the transaction.

Published: September 13, 2000

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