A 75-year-old widow in Florida who was forced to cancel the sale contract for her home after she broke her leg and was unable to move faced a demand from her real estate broker for the $23,000 sales commission on the terminated deal.
According to a report by WFTS ABC Action News, Jackeline Estrada decided to sell her residence in Spring Hill, Florida, last year following the death of her husband. Estrada signed a home listing agreement with RE/MAX Collective agency in Carrollwood, Florida, and received an offer on the property last June and was getting ready to move when she fell and shattered her leg in early July. Estrada underwent weeks of recovery and in-home treatment, but her doctor warned her that the leg had yet to heal and that she was not ready for the physical stress of moving.
By late August, Estrada and her buyers – a pair of investors – signed a release to cancel the deal, with the buyers acknowledging they could not wait longer for Estrada to move out.
But seven months later, Estrada received a letter from her broker’s attorney demanding his commission from the aborted sale. The total amount demanded was $23,740, which included a 7% commission and a $990 fee.
“They want her to go into her bank account to pay them on a commission for a sale that never happened,” said Estrada’s attorney, Andy Lyons.
While RE/MAX Collective’s legal representative initially responded by email claiming that “our client has a valid claim for services rendered,” a follow-up email after the story appeared online announced that “the matter has been amicably resolved.”
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This is not who we are as Realtors. We have an ethical obligation to abide by the Golden Rule. I’m flabbergasted!!
This is so typical of a desperate Agent most likely his only deal this year, and he asked to burn a bridge. Shame on ReMax and this agent for doing this to this woman. When she gets ready to sell, she’s certainly not gonna call ReMax or that guy. It’s a shame that we have idiots out in our industry that do things like this. He needs to go get a job at Macy’s.
My only question is did the owner subsequently sell her home without using the same agent.
No, she is still living there.
My first thought.
Usually they file a lien against the property. He could have done a conditional withdrawal. That would have kept the woman from reselling during a time frame. And if she tried in the MLS Re/max would have been eligible for 1/2 the commission.
Remember once you put listings into MLS , every person and flipper in town knows this woman needs to sell.
So people are soliciting her without your company.
That’s why I won’t take high listings anymore. They will try to do short lusting periods and then the sellers have free advertising.
That is truly disgusting and gives our profession a black eye.
What happened to the Golden Rule if this person calls himself a Realtor and why did he charge 9% commission!!!
Glad the broker backed down from this claim. Yes, the broker is legally entitled to his/her commission. But let’s have some compassion. The sale canceled because of circumstances beyond the woman’s control.
Unlikely a commission was earned. Statutory and case law in most states require a real estate transaction to close before a commission may be earned. In addition, if the agent hadn’t been a horse’s ass (and I blame the broker for a failure to supervise), the brokerage may very well have seen a commission flow it’s way when the house is eventually put back on the market and sold.
There are two other things that bug me about this article. The listing agreement is between the seller and Re/Max; not with the agent. A competent attorney would have noted this distinction immediately. Also, because the buyers and the seller terminated the purchase agreement, no commission would be due. I’ve seen listing agreements that state that the agent’s marketing fees may be recovered in the event a listing is cancelled prior to the term of the agreement, but as someone else said, why would you want to “burn a bridge.
The other thing that strikes me as odd is the reported commission rate. Damn – I sure hope that poor woman was quoted a rate commensurate with the going rate in the market and the level of work undertaken. If not, that agent, the broker in charge and the brokerage should be advised by that attorney that they very well could be sued under the state’s consumer protection laws for taking advantage of a senior citizen and undue influence.
That’s not true, read the listing agreement, commission is earned when legitimate sale is procured. Being an attorney doesn’t mean you make the rules according to how you think it should go.
Likely the attorney demanded his standard 33% fee. Attorneys have set fees. Interesting! Perhaps NAR should back a class action against the attorneys…
Good luck with that. That broker is a scumbag. The Florida real estate Commission should be all over this. Unethical. Rules state that a broker must treat clients fairly and consider the client interests over their own. This requires investivation by the Commission. BTW…I’m a broker in Texas. TREC would kick my ass if I did this.
Maybe the doctor is the scumbag for telling her it was too stressful to move. We really do not have all of the details. What does the agreement say? The broker should get what he is entitled to in the agreement and nothing more or less. Based on your reasoning, Jay, it is unethical to collect fees that one is contractually entitled to. Are you some kind of pro-bono agent that works for free? TREC is all about selective enforcement when it suits them for PR reasons. They probably would kick your ass for this. But that doesn’t make them right. They are like a broken clock when it comes to being right.
Everything you said is 100% correct as a contract is a contract and the agent fulfilled his duties. Look at it this way…if you have a car note/mortgage/credit card bills/etc., do you think those companies are going to “forgive you” if you can no longer pay for whatever reason? The answer of course is NO.
The same thing happened to me and my broker a few years ago. I had a home for sale and I knew the seller was a bit of but she insisted I put her house on the market. We received a full price offer from another broker and she signed. A couple days later she called me crying that she couldn’t move and I received a note from her doctor letting me know she is bipolar so I stopped the sale and begged the other agent to please understand. The agent and her broker then took us to the board of Pismo Beach in CA and demanded our company pay them a commission. In the meantime she had already taken her clients and sold them another home and she received a commission, can you believe that. Of course our board denied their claims and she personally called the seller to come to the meeting which she refused. I have been a successful realtor for many years and have never seen anything like this. The seller even offered to pay me for my services but I refuse to take any monies. There’s ethical realtor’s and none ethical
Thank you for a sensible intelligent answer
Yeppp!!!! to all you said!! Texas here also!!
Hmmm… Lots of good comments. Yes, a contract is a contract. If it states that you had a ready, willing and able buyer, the contract was signed and agreed upon, and the deal then falls through due to the seller, then yes, the broker did earn his fee. However, as was mentioned, we don’t have all the details here. I had a seller client that wanted to get out of their contract because they started talking with another broker that advised them I was not doing all I should do (according to that broker). My client wanted to terminate the listing agreement and go with the other broker. Can you say, “Tortious Interference?” So, I sent a bill for my services. We deserve to be paid for the work we do. They then saw their error and continued with the listing. So there is a balance that we have to come to. But in this case, who are we to judge what that balance may be. I was not there and do not have all the details.
Shame on ReMax for letting that agent ask for commission!
I’ll never use them when it comes time to sell my home!! Have a little compassion! That agent will have a lot of explaining to do to future sellers!
… Better just simply not to judge… There’s not enough information here to explain why somebody would go after a seller for their commission… Do we know all the information surrounding that? Without knowing that you may not know exactly why the broker or his attorney did this…
Well
Sale doesn’t close, no commission, period. It happens.
Amen sister I took the house off the market and it didn’t close and even though I put work and advertising I still didn’t take the commission she offered me she was sick being bipolar
This type of Action makes it bad for every agent in the future. What Attorney’s will start doing will be adding a clause stating the “Real Estate Commission is not due until closing of the transaction”.
So it says that the BROKERS attorney sent the letter demanding commission. NOT the agents attorney. I wonder , if the agent was involved at all in that decision to escalate that into a demand letter or not.
Either way RE/MAX Collective …..that’s a bad look! If the story hadn’t appeared online would they still have backed off?
Keep in mind, that all RE/MAX offices are independently owned and operated, so it was not RE/MAX but the Collective broker who decided to go after the seller. It is frustrating that some RE/MAX owners do not adhere to the Golden Rule and give the rest of the broker/owners a bad wrap. So sad that she had to go through that anguish on top of losing her husband and suffering a serious injury. Karma will be back.
It would seem we do not have all the information. Moving can be done by a moving company. If she is able to make it to the doctor, she could make it to her next home. We just do not have enough information. Second it is apparent that most agents do not have ethic’s according to the lawsuit that the NAR lost. It specifically states ethic violations across the board and broad range. I am sorry those agents that claim on this post ” I would never have done anything unethical” maybe not. But we do already have a guilty verdict that encompasses the majority of realtors.