A couple of years ago I was dealing with this situation… actually cleaning up after it.

I had a client that had an offer on their house with an out of town agent (the agent was the buyer’s niece).  She was very nice, but she couldn’t be there for any of the 6 inspections we had, nor could she be there for the closing.  In effect, her clients were largely unrepresented in the sale… they were constantly asking me (the agent that is contractually bound to represent the best interests of the seller) how they should proceed or what would be in their best interest.

It came to a head at the closing…  The closing attorney got a bit testy with them for continually asking me to explain the forms to them.  He asked where their agent was.  They replied that their niece wasn’t able to come up from Valdosta.  He then asked if she was there for inspections or anything else.  One of them stated that she usually was able to help them via phone, but that often they had to rely on me.  The husband made a comment that I had declined answering some of their questions.  The attorney busted out laughing.  After a moment, he said that since I was contractually tied to the seller, there were few questions I could answer for them, and that I should NEVER have ventured an opinion about any issue they faced.  The wife chuckled and gave her husband an “I told you so” look.  The closing attorney held up the check that was going to their agent and asked what she had done to earn it…  She hadn’t answered their questions, she hadn’t shown the property, she didn’t even find it and send them information on it.

There are a lot of agents that tag their listings with language like “If I show this property to your client, commission will be X%” (generally about 1/6th of the offered split in the listing).  I don’t usually employ such language because I want to get the listing sold for my client, not punish other agents for not doing their job.  But, I understand the reason.

The bottom line is that employing an agent (whether on the buyer side OR the seller side) that isn’t in the area doesn’t result in solid representation.

Check out the original post here…

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