Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Of course it's legal. The only legal restriction on real estate commissions is that you must be a broker or agent to share in a commission directly, as opposed to an employee of a firm who gets paid a wage or salary out of a revenue stream. As a licensed broker you should know that. As for ethics, you should know the ethics of your profession better than a lawyer, so why ask us?

Personally, I would wonder why my fellow broker was asking to have his or her commission share doubled. If they are asking in order to rebate the buyer's broker's half to the seller to sweeten the sale price and the listing broker is still only going to take half the commission agreed in the listing agreement, that seems like an odd way to ask for a higher price, but it seems it might work slightly in your favor and the seller's by saving a couple of dollars on any closing costs and/or taxes that are tied to the selling price of the property, as compared to just increasing the sales price by 2.5 or 3% Again, though, none of this is a legal issue.