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You bring the moral argument to the party. Unfortunately, the moral right is not always the legal right. I'm not saying I could sleep at night - that's another argument.
I was taught, and always practiced in business, to do the morally right thing. That is the real measure of a man and trying to take advantage of a person for monetary gain is not morally the right thing to do.
It all depends just because you can legally slip something over on another person does not make it the right thing to do.
Depends on your own personal moral code, and shows the quality of person you are.
Out of curiosity, I re-read my posts and there is nothing there that is from the point of view of the seller. Nor did I ask anything about "this is what was meant".
In any case, you are wrong.
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Your Obsession with this make it appear you are the Seller looking for advice on how to get out of signing an addendum that you would pay for the repairs when you meant that the buyer pays for it. Once again, your action are inconsistent with that of a buyer who found themselves on the wining end. Its like you want to torpedo this addendum, something only the seller would be worried about to this degree!
Your Obsession with this make it appear you are the Seller looking for advice on how to get out of signing an addendum that you would pay for the repairs when you meant that the buyer pays for it. Once again, your action are inconsistent with that of a buyer who found themselves on the wining end. Its like you want to torpedo this addendum, something only the seller would be worried about to this degree!
Totally agree. Bad news for him if that's the case, the one person who LEGALLY doesn't have to pay for the error is the buyer. The real debate is whether the seller or the agent is going to eat the cost. Using a dual agent is in no one's best interest and I wish more states would make it illegal.
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The whole dual agency thing really is beside the point here if it is an honest mistake. A mistake like this can and I'm sure has been made before in non dual agency situations as well. An agent mistakenly put seller where they intended to put buyer. Lesson learned. Slow down and think when you write up an addendum. When you make a mistake you pay for it and make it right. If I were this agent the seller and buyer would pay nothing otherwise word would get out that they paid for my mistake and that's horrible for business.
It doesn't matter what the buyer may have heard or not. Would it be unthinkable that the seller changed their mind and agreed to pay for it in order to get the house sold? Remember that if the seller doesn't want to pay for it the buyer doesn't have to proceed with the sale. Nothing unethical about taking a written addendum to be for real. That's why we put things in writing.
The whole dual agency thing really is beside the point here if it is an honest mistake. A mistake like this can and I'm sure has been made before in non dual agency situations as well. An agent mistakenly put seller where they intended to put buyer. Lesson learned. Slow down and think when you write up an addendum. When you make a mistake you pay for it and make it right. If I were this agent the seller and buyer would pay nothing otherwise word would get out that they paid for my mistake and that's horrible for business.
It doesn't matter what the buyer may have heard or not. Would it be unthinkable that the seller changed their mind and agreed to pay for it in order to get the house sold? Remember that if the seller doesn't want to pay for it the buyer doesn't have to proceed with the sale. Nothing unethical about taking a written addendum to be for real. That's why we put things in writing.
It wouldn't be unthinkable, no, IF the buyer had said that the seller's suggestion the buyer pay was unacceptable and was going to mean the deal would die. But seriously, do you think it's even remotely realistic that a seller would randomly say "oh, hey, remember that $8,000 the buyer agreed to pay? Yeah, can you change the contract so that I'm paying that instead? Thanks, that's so much better now!" It's just not going to happen.
My little cousin is purchasing a condo for himself. I am acting as his "adviser" so to speak, since he is new to the area. I gave him advice on neighborhoods, price, and accompanied him to open houses etc. This market is extremely competitive, condos in his price range fly off the market in under ten days with multiple bids.
He decided to make an offer on a condo that he likes. On my advice, he uses a dual agency to beat out the competition. His offer was accepted. An inspection was conducted and found that the shower is possibly leaking into the framing behind the wall. Negotiation on how much credit the seller should give for the repair took place, after many back and forth, the dual agent drafted an addendum with the agreement. My cousin forwarded me the draft and asked for my advice.
The addendum basically says, "Seller and buyer to split the cost of demolition of shower stall and dry rot inspection of the framing behind the shower. Seller pays for everything else related to repair of the shower."
Upon reviewing the agent's draft, I found it to be satisfactory and advised my cousin to sign the addendum and lift the inspection contingency.
My cousin got a contractor to give him a quote of the repair. We forwarded said quote to the agent who then presented to the seller.
Here's where things took an unexpected turn - it turns out the dual agent said he made a typo in the addendum. Instead of "Seller pays for everything else related to repair of the shower." He said he meant to write "Buyer pays for everything else related to repair of the shower."
The addendum has been signed by both seller and buyer (my cousin). And my cousin only moved forward based on the verbage in the addendum. Had we known it was "buyer" who pays for that, we might not have lifted the contingency.
So what to do now? The dual agent just wants to change it back to buyer pays for everything else and move on. But my cousin is feeling like he was feed bad information to move forward. The seller doesn't seem like wants to pay that portion.
Anyone out there encountered similar situation?
If you're the agent, who'd you do?
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Well, he has a signed and executed addendum/agreement as to repairs, and everyone had a good chance to read it and review it before signing. The seller can't just say, "WAIT! NO! WRONG!" That's what agreements are for. Sounds like the seller and the agent are going to have to work this out. As a buyer, your cousin has a signed agreement. As an agent, if I made a mistake like that, I wouldn't expect a buyer to cheerfully say, "Sure, no problem, I don't mind spending another $8,000." It's not in their best interests. As the agent who made the error, I would expect to have to eat all or part of the error it out of my commission.
This is yet another problem with dual agency -- your cousin really doesn't have someone looking out for his interest. If he had his own buyers agent, with a fiduciary duty to his buyer, his agent would possibly have commiserated with the error, but politely refused. (A ruder agent may have laughed before hanging up on the seller's agent. :-)
After reading some of the other posts, I see that he had verbally agreed to pay for the shower, but didn't bring the error to the attention of the agent, thinking that he was getting a freebie. I agree with a previous poster that the fair thing to do would be for all parties to share in the cost of the shower, or the agent pays for 2/3 and the buyer pays for 1/3, or some combination. Oral agreements aren't worth the paper they are written on. :-) But if the agent has copies of emails, etc. showing intent, then they might be able to make a case before a sympathetic judge in small claims court. If I were the agent, I'd be checking my E&O (errors and omissions) insurance, because this is definitely an "error".
Your Obsession with this make it appear you are the Seller looking for advice on how to get out of signing an addendum that you would pay for the repairs when you meant that the buyer pays for it. Once again, your action are inconsistent with that of a buyer who found themselves on the wining end. Its like you want to torpedo this addendum, something only the seller would be worried about to this degree!
I'm not the buyer, my cousin is. I thought I made that clear. I'm not the seller either. So if you're expecting me to think like a buyer then you'd be drawing the wrong conclusion because, again, I'm not the buyer.
It seems you're the only one who saw this obsession. If I'm the seller the I'd post this thread asking for advice as a seller. This is an anonymous board, so why would anyone need to be sneaky about it?
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It wouldn't be unthinkable, no, IF the buyer had said that the seller's suggestion the buyer pay was unacceptable and was going to mean the deal would die. But seriously, do you think it's even remotely realistic that a seller would randomly say "oh, hey, remember that $8,000 the buyer agreed to pay? Yeah, can you change the contract so that I'm paying that instead? Thanks, that's so much better now!" It's just not going to happen.
If I thought you understood this I would reply. Never mind.
After reading some of the other posts, I see that he had verbally agreed to pay for the shower, but didn't bring the error to the attention of the agent, thinking that he was getting a freebie. I agree with a previous poster that the fair thing to do would be for all parties to share in the cost of the shower, or the agent pays for 2/3 and the buyer pays for 1/3, or some combination. Oral agreements aren't worth the paper they are written on. :-) But if the agent has copies of emails, etc. showing intent, then they might be able to make a case before a sympathetic judge in small claims court. If I were the agent, I'd be checking my E&O (errors and omissions) insurance, because this is definitely an "error".
No no no. All of you please stop saying that the buyer has a responsibility here. It shouldn't be wrong for them to assume that we agents know what we are doing. We are the ones getting paid and paid well to do this. We are here to provide guidance for them, not the other way around. Our mistakes are on us. The buyer did what he was suppose to. He read it, agreed with what was written and signed it. We aren't hearing from the sellers side, don't know what was said, but if he feels he was cheated and the agent won't fix it its time for him to call the broker. The agent should cough up the money and fix it. No need to involve lawyers and courts. I think that's for bigger stuff.
And think about this. This agent typed up an addendum, sent it to the buyer, buyer signed it, sent it back to agent, he then took it to or sent it to his seller, seller signed and then he got it back from seller. Then he sent it to the buyer signed by both parties. Point is the buyer and seller do not pass these things back and forth between themselves, they go through the agent who all these times had it in hand going back and forth and must have NEVER LOOKED AT IT!!!!! I ask you whose mistake is this?
If there was discussion before hand and everyone had verbally agreed to the buyer paying all other costs and the contract was simply a typo, then ethically it should be amended to reflect the meeting of minds at the time of the contract drawing. If the written contract was the offer and the buyer made his decision based on the written contract terms, then the fault is with the seller for incorrectly writing the contract and they and their agent should not be able to shift the damages off to the innocent party in the contract.
It all boils down to what was discussed and when before the contract was written. In my area, the written contract would be the only enforceable terms regardless of the verbal contract before hand, so it is not a legal imperative to amend the contract, only a ethical one. In the absence of ethics, the written contract should be the final say in the matter even if it was incorrectly drawn since it has signatures of both parties.
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