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For the past year my wife and I have been taking our time looking at houses and have been in no rush. We have been working with one particular agent, but now as we close in the time to pull the trigger we may have an unexpected opportunity. A family member is interested in selling us their home well below market value. There is a pretty good chance we will take them up on the offer. If so, I see no need to involve agent fees or anything like that; the sale will be outright in cash. I've stayed in the house plenty myself over the past 20+ years and I know exactly what I am getting with it.
If we do this I don't think I'm under any particular obligation to compensate the agent we've been working with, but I would like to compensate her in some way for the time, energy, and mileage she has expended in helping us. That said, it also seems like it could be one of those situations where by trying to do the right thing maybe there is some legal clause that she could cry foul on and make a small claims case against us if she wanted? In other words, if we gave her a nice little cut, but she didn't get to be involved in the process could she muddy things up for us if she took the news badly? Also, what would be appropriate compensation anyways?
You have no legal obligation, after you buy you can offer a gift, or you can ask her how much it would cost to use her services for the closing or any other paper work that you can't do yourself.
If she takes the news badly then you don't have to worry about a gift. I'm sure it happens. As long as you have been serious and not wasting the person's time you should be okay. Calculate how many hours she took you out for and give her at least $10 an hour plus a gas card, Gas is cheap now too.
One thing you can offer that is quite valuable to an agent is to be useful as a reference and to recommend her to your friends and colleagues. Also, are gift cards allowed in this case? If so a couple hundred in gas cards or the like would seem appropriate.
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