Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Oklahoma

Law versus reality.

I imagine you have an enforceable contract. (I'dhave to read it to be able to give you properlegal advice, so this is just an offhand comment.)

However, I also believe your end of the contract hasno teeth. The realtor's committment is probably vague,e.g., "must use best efforts" -- which lawyers mightcall unenforceable for the simple reason that you maynot be able to prove they didn't. (You realize that it was lawyers for realtors who composed the contract wording.) Unless there's a dollar figure for theirexpenses for advertising, .... Moreover, even if youforced them to advertise, it is their phone number inthe ad and if they're not motivated to sell, you won'tbe getting the attention you need, will you? If you want the property sold, and there are other realtors whomay be willing, ....

If I were your lawyer, I'd sure want to ask you WHY a realtor would have lost interest in listing your property, and especially why so suddenly. Was therejust some sort of argument?

Another factor in this case should be the length of time you would spend trying to get a court to enforcethe agreement. Most likely, the agreement would havelong expired before a court would either order them toget busy and fill their part of the bargain (which is arare result) or to pay you damages, which are hard toprove. Damages you could ask for: the difference betweenthe price you could get later and the price you could havegotten then if they'd done their job, but such damages onlyexist if the market drops and are only measurable if you could somehow show what you would have gotten ... which isvirtually impossible. There are other ways to measuredamages, e.g., the cost of the advertising, but they don'tamount to much and probably aren't worth the lawsuit effortor expense.

You should know that getting "specific performance" -- an order from a judge to get busy and start selling -- is in moststates quite unlikely. It sort of goes against the concept ofslavery, you might say.

After you solve the real world question of what you need to doto sell the property, if you still want to, for example, get some revenge or make some threats at the realtor, you'd better at leastconsult a local attorney. NOT ME!!!

Realtor contract -- doubletake

I'm sorry, I just noticed where you wrote that the realtor is responsible for payments. I don'tunderstand. What payments? Perhaps all that I wrote was inapplicable after all!!! Who wrote thiscontract anyway?