Legal Question in Business Law in Massachusetts

Re: Buyer Broker Agreement

The answer to your question is fact specific and depends upon the terms and conditions of your initial agreement with the broker/agent seeking his/her commission (for example, did the broker need to procure a ready, willing and able buyer to complete the sale?:)). Please feel free to contact my office for a free initial consult.;))

Re: Buyer Broker Agreement

Retain an attorney to review the specific agreement and thr specific fact.

Good Luck!

Re: Buyer Broker Agreement

Without reading the agreement I can not be accurate in anything I say below.

However, assuming this home was never shown or provided to the Buyer by the Broker and the broker stopped working with the Buyers by not providing continuing houses and put something in an email to that effect or otherwise refused to show homes to the Buyers then the Broker breached the contract and is not entitled to the commission. However, if the home purchased was shown by the broker to the Buyer then they have a right to the brokerage fee. If there are multiple brokers involved there is a Multi-list GREB program for resolving disputes between brokers.

The problem here is proving the Broker stopped working for you. When the broker stopped returning your calls or showing you homes, you should have insisted that they terminate the agreement.

If you have more quesitons, please feel free to contact me.

Re: Buyer Broker Agreement

Other relevant considerations would be whether the buyer-broker agreement was made contingent on buyer's ability to successfully obtain financing, and whether the agreement was exclusive and restrictive, such that it expressly prohibited the buyer from finding and purchasing properties on its own, which were not introduced by the broker (broker was not the "efficient cause" of the transaction). The documents need to be examined, in other words.

However, even without provisions like those mentioned here, I agree that the broker's seemingly unequivical abandonment of his/her responsibilities under the agreement probably justifies the (single buyer's need to seek out properties on his/her own. I recently handled a very similar case. Mass law is relatively stringent against brokers seeking commission where they were not the efficient cause of the lead, and the buyer did not wrongfully circumvent the broker and purchase a property the broker introduced. Probably you can avoid paying the fee; though you might get sued for it. However, I would not be surprised if you were to win.

Feel free to contact me to discuss this further.

Re: Buyer Broker Agreement

It depends on the terms of the agreement.