Imagine you're an agent who is constantly in the field and for whatever reason has limited or no access to email to expeditiously forward communications and documents back and forth during periods of time-sensitive negotiations, offers, counters, etc. In most cases you take care of email during the mornings & evenings which causes delays to the process during the rest of the day. Your client wants no more of that process & wants to eliminate communication issues and other delays. Your client is requesting to be CC'd on all communications (Client wants his email address in confidential notes to be CC'd for fast response to any offers/counters) . Primarily client wants to quickly negotiate with potential buyers to negotiate informally of what potentially would be accepted as a formal offer or counter. You're going to lose the listing and considerable future business from this client if you don't agree to this. What do you do and why?

Your client (Seller) wants direct contact w/buyers agent?

Real Estate Professional · West Palm Beach, FL · Member since 2012 · 23k+ posts · 13k+ votes

9y

Sounds like you have another full time job where you can't properly attend to your re communications, there would be no other excuse for this. If so, you probably need to let the client do what they need to do. It seems like the client is capable of doing what needs to be done, and you're lucky he is willing to do this as opposed to replacing you.

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Mike CumbieBusiness Member

REALTOR® · Brockport, NY · Member since 2015 · 3k+ posts · 4k+ votes

9y

@Jay G.

I would not be in that situation with the technology available today. I keep a tablet with me at all times and can login to my laptop and hot spot my phone so I have WiFi. There may be days where I have many other things going on, but it is not the norm that I can't break away for 10 minutes to make a phone call/write up a quick counter and e-sign away.

However if I was unable to fill my clients needs I would send them to someone who can. Pull a referral fee from another agent who has the availability to spend the time required on this client. Having them do their own negotiating is still all going to fall on you. Anything not mentioned or agreed to by them is going to come back and bite you. Forms missed you think are not required are all of a sudden your fault for not having taken care of. When it finally all does start to fall apart you are going to end up being the one that gets the bad reputation and known as someone who "misses things" and "can't get the client to the closing table". Also you have a duty to represent your client above your own interests. How are you doing your number one task without even being involved?

Best of luck and I hope you find a client that fits more into your business model!

1 Reply

Ben Snyder

Real Estate Agent · Galena, OH · Member since 2016 · 3 posts · 2 votes

9y

It sounds to me like you are over committed. Either because of another full-time job, like Wayne mentioned, or you took on too many clients (compared to your available time, energy level, family commitments etc).

Do you not have the fiduciary duty of obedience to obey lawful instructions from your client? Unless there is something illegal about them requesting this, you would have to comply so long as doing so does not breach another fiduciary duty to another client (confidentiality, for example).

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Brett SynickyPro Member

Solo 401k and SDIRA Consultant · Orange, CA · Member since 2013 · 873 posts · 497 votes

9y

It is a little strange but obviously the seller has lost faith for one reason or another. I would probably fix it immediately or give the seller what they want. That said, I myself don't check email constantly, otherwise that's all I would get done plus I'd have add. I recommend setting up an auto responder that says you check email between 4-6pm everyday, if you need me outside of those hours you need to call me at xxx-xxx-xxxx.

Your client (Seller) wants direct contact w/buyers agent?

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