Why Agents Need to Be Clear When Explaining The Buyer Agency Agreement
It can be easy to rush through the discussion about the Buyer Agency Agreement, but it can be detrimental to your agent-client relationship if you aren’t clear and they hire someone else, too.
I often talk about the importance of having buyers commit to working with you by signing a Buyer Agency Agreement. Not only does this ensure that you will get paid for all the work you do, but it protects you AND the buyer in many other ways as well.
However, there is the occasional time where your buyers sign this…and still go off with another, which was a frustrating situation that one of my Power Agents® faced recently. He signed the agreement to work with her, and then saw a new home builder online and registered with their agent as a new home buyer.
This Power Agent® took her copy of the Buyer Agency agreement, as well as a copy of the buyer’s contract with the new home builder to her broker manager to see what could be done.
Maybe you have experienced something similar to the scenario listed above. If your buyer has a signed agreement, but they go out and buy with another agent, even a new home builder’s agent, they legally owe you that fee. Now, because the buyer went and registered with a second agent, they are going to end up owing TWO fees, so that’s on the buyer, and now you need to decide if it’s worth pursuing or not.
The Manager-Agent Partnership
The relationship between a brokerage manager and a real estate agent is a partnership. When you need to make major decisions, you and your partner need to be on the same page. If you disagree with your partner, then you have to spend some time working that out.
TIP: These partnerships are vital to maintain, so check out this article by Agency Revolution that outlines “9 Secrets to Amazing Strategic Partnerships for Agents and Brokers.”
A Couple of Things To Think About
First, you need to go look into the mirror and ask yourself, “Was I really really clear with my buyers about what signing this Buyer Agency Agreement really means?” This is the matter of integrity here, so it doesn’t matter what recourse you legally have, you need to be able to look at yourself in the mirror (and don’t be insecure!) and ask yourself honestly, were you really abundantly clear?
TIP: Check out this related article, “Standing Tall As An Agent Of Integrity”
Now, you can argue with yourself and say, “Well, even if I wasn’t clear, it’s up to them to read it, and it says right in the document what it means. It’s clear to me when I read it.” You need to feel OK with this. If you feel like yes, you were very clear, and you think they just forgot (it happens), but you know that when you spoke with them that you were clear and you can feel good about your part, then you move onto the second thing to think about, “Do I now want to shake them down for the money they owe me?”
That’s the business decision. Some people would say, “let it go, move on, the Universe will take care of you,” and others will say “You are a business-person and you have to have standards and rules. If you make an exception to the rule, then that exception becomes the new rule and you can’t hold your clients to different sets of rules.”
You have to make that decision from a business standpoint, where do you stand with this? If you decide (from a business standpoint) that you are going to pursue this, then cue partnership: you need your manager to support you in that decision.
If you manager doesn’t support you, then you need to decide how much of a battle you want to start with this, and if it’s really worth it.
What’s Next?
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