Ron David

I agree with the other agent with regards to how the agreement can be structured, in terms of the time commitment, but I disagree that the agreement only applies to houses the agent walks the buyer into. If you sign a buyer-broker agreement and have never met the agent in person, and you close on a real estate transaction during the term of the agreement, anywhere in the State that agreement is applicable to- you owe the commission regardless of whether you met the agent or not. Whether the agent " showedaEUR? you real estate in-person, virtually, through email, MLS search subscription or maybe they showed you nothing at all. Maybe you only communicated via a few texts and email- doesn't matter. You could have inquired about a mobile home but ended up buying land or a strip mall- again, doesn't matter. Here's a scenario to illustrate my point: You submit an inquiry to see a house via Zillow, RedFin, whatever site or you found the agent number via some other means, it can be off Facebook, Google search- it doesn't matter. The agent doesn't work for any of those companies, they are an independent contractor. You speak to the agent and request a tour. Agent tells you they require a buyer-broker agreement. Agent send you agreement and you sign (let's say Docusign/Authentisign whatever). Agent then gets a call/text from the listing agent who refuses to approve showing request because they already have 5 offers that just came in that day. Agent informs client and offers to show comparable properties but the client declined. A couple days later the client goes into an open house, meets with an agent, signs a purchase contract that closes escrow 30 days later. During the escrow period, the agent with the signed buyer-broker agreement is sending emails, texting, calling and is being ghosted by the client. (But for the sake of this example- let's say it's a bad agent that didn't make one follow-up attempt). Prior to the expiration of the buyer broker agreement, ghosted agent decides to do some discovery and the agent discovers the buyer purchased a house (there are many ways to find out- easiest way is via your search history on Zillow, Redfin or whatever site you submitted the inquiry). An agent could also have a Title Officer run a search as well. However they find out, they found out. Ok moving onaEUR| At that point, the agent could sue the client for their split of the commission, even if the broker elects not to enforce the buyer-broker agreement for the broker's portion of the commission. Now once the agreement has expired, it's a little grey area. But while there is a valid, signed contract, it is black and white and it is enforceable. Ignorance of the law is NOT a defense. Btw, I'm not signed up on this site to receive any leads and don't care to be. I just saw the question as I was scrolling through Google looking for something else. I'm only saying this so you know I have no skin in the game and don't care to get any business off this website. Hope that helps.