Denver Real Estate by Denver Neighborhoods

Well… all I can tell you is if you are a buyer working with a buyer agent, MAKE SURE THAT AGENT IS DOING HIS/HER JOB! They have a fiduciary responsibility to you, in many ways. One in particular is to FOLLOW ALL CONTRACT DEADLINE DATES. Period. In this case, the buyer’s agent did not deposit the required earnest money deposit by the contract due date which automatically caused the buyer to default on the contract. The seller at that point, had every right to the earnest money which in this case, is $5,000! This particular buyer agent deliberately and irresponsibly withheld the earnest money so as to give time to complete the buyer’s inspection of the property and avoid having to deliver the EM check and then potentially have to go through the process of getting it returned once they decided to terminate the contract upon inspection. Which they did. Though, keep in mind, at that point there really wasn’t a contract to terminate as it was already breached by the buyer, well really by the buyer agent on behalf of the buyer.
Unfortunately, because the buyer agent did not deposit the EM check, it makes it more difficult for the seller to collect. The seller will have to turn to mediation or small claims court to obtain the earnest money which is time consuming and adds additional expense to the situation. The sad thing here is that the buyer probably has no clue that his agent has put his $5,000 at risk here. The agent probably misrepresented her fiduciary role to the buyer with regard to this situation and he probably thinks that she is an awesome Realtor! Of course, I am only speculating. Yes, when it comes right down to it, the buyer agent should be getting her checkbook out! She should pay for this– The other course of action for the seller is to contact the Colorado Real Estate Commission and file a complaint against the agent. This agent has thus far denied her responsibility, of course, and insists that she did nothing wrong. I feel for her— she is unfortunately an agent at a brokerage where she gets very little supervision, classes, training, support, mentoring, etc. Agents like this sort of brokerage as they are cheap low cost firms to hang their license as they want to keep as much commission as possible… You know the saying “You get what you pay for”, this is a prime example of this.
Anyway– if you have any comments or questions about the details of this situation, please feel free to post it here! Or email me, I am happy to discuss further!

BUYERS! BE AWARE OF YOUR BUYER AGENTS TRUE ROLE AND FIDUCIARY RESPONSIBILITIES! DON’T ENTER BLINDLY INTO A BUYER AGENCY AGREEMENT WITHOUT KNOWING EXACTLY WHAT YOU SHOULD BE GETTING!

Thank you!