Finder's Fee Dilemma

[Alex Atlas]

Hello everyone,

Here's my dilemma: About a year ago, I started to farm a new area of my city (Boston). I received a call from one of my mailings and visited the property. I began negotiating with the homeowner for the next few days. In the meantime, I met with a good friend who said he was close with a very well respected developer in the area of Boston I was farming and passed along his contact info.

Turns out I had actually met the developer a few times so I reached out and got his opinion on the neighborhood and the property I was looking to purchase. The property included an adjacent lot so I asked how new construction was selling in that area etc. I gave him the address and he told me the lot was not developable. I told him ok and I would notify him if i got a good deal on the property.

The next day, I called the property owner, and he said he was no longer interested and that someone else had made a better offer. I was very busy with other properties at the time, so I thought nothing of it and moved on.

Fast forward a year: I'm combing through some permit records and I find that the subject property was purchased by the "well respected developer" and he was now building on the "un-developable" lot.

In hindsight, I obviously realize that it was stupid to give out the property address without having it under contract. In context, knowing my friend, and the developers good reputation, it didn't seem like a poor decision at the time.

That said, do I have any recourse to get some sort of referral fee from this project? The property was purchased for around $1.2 mil. Most or my correspondence with the developer was via text and I still have them all. I gave him the address via text, he said it was un-developable via text, I said I would let him know if I got a good deal on it via text... etc.

Should I just let bygones be bygones or should I pursue this?

Any thoughts on the matter are greatly appreciated.

Again, I KNOW it was stupid to give out the address under any circumstances, I'm just looking for opinions on how to proceed. Thank you!

[J Scott]

I would bet that you have no legal grounds for earning any money (you're not licensed and you had no contract with the buyer or seller).

That said, I would do my best to destroy his reputation if I could...

But, as I like to say, I'm very spiteful when it comes to unethical people... :P