Posted by Natalie Smith on November 21, 2004 at 12:03:22:
Rob,
I am a real estate broker, not an attorney.
In Virginia (and probably most everywhere) agents must submit all written offers by law. Additionally, if they are a member of the National Association of Realtors, they must submit ALL offers, written or verbal. You really have no way of knowing if the bank asked the listing agent to make those changes as part of a counter offer or not. It sounds like your gut is telling you it was never presented. It might be worth a phone call to the bank. Your agent cannot call someone else’s client for ethical reasons, but you can.
If there was a violation, don’t count on your agent to report the violation(s). Agents rarely report each other. If you want to report the listing agent, you can report them to the licensing authority in your state for investigation and also to the local Realtor association. If more people report these violations, maybe agents will think twice about breaking the law.
I had my agent submit an offer on a bank owned 4-unit apartment. The listing agent called my agent and expressed how upset he was at the offer because we wrote seller is to rebate up to 6% of the total loan amount for closing cost. My agent informed him to submit the offer to the bank and in the mean time we will prepare another offer for the listing agent to review in case the bank does not accept the original offer. The listing agent informed us that the offer was sent to the bank. The asking price was $28,000 and we offered $25,000.
While we are waiting to hear back on the first offer, my agent and I write up another offer this time stating seller is to pay sellers closing costs not to exceed $5000. We offered $30,000 with $5,000 being rebated for closing, so the bank will net $25,000. We then sent this to the listing agent. In a couple of days the listing agent faxed back the offer and crossed out $30,000 and put $33,000. A couple of other items were crossed off also.
Since I saw that the bank wanted $28,000 instead of my offer price of $25,000, I decided to pass on the deal. About a week later I checked on the property again and found out the asking price had been reduced to $25,900.
It is important for me to note that I never signed the second purchase agreement, but this is the agreement that had the price crossed off. I believe the bank never saw my original offer. It is my understanding that the agent must submit all offers no matter how crazy the offer may seem to the agent. Also, it was not the agents place to cross out my offer price.