As a professional Listing and Selling agent, I would hope that the answer is right in front of you!! As others have said, one who cheats one person will always cheat the next. If your buyers agent found you the house, you "should" feel an obligation to compensate them. Legal obligation or not, issues such as these I just find "Character Revealing".

Sounds like the seller is deliberately cheating the listing agent. I expect they'll do their best to cheat you too.

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Ken Lampton / RE/MAX About Dallas

Does it feel to you at all like the seller is trying to cheat their agent and your agent? The agents found a ready, willing and able purchaser, which is what the sellers hired their agent to do for them. Might they treat you the same fairness and honesty in their negotiations with you?

I know nothing about the terms of their listing contract. In my listing contracts, the seller would owe me the full commission if you purchased the house within 6 months of the listing expiration.

Frankly, I would insist that the seller pay at least your agent. She/he found you the house and can still continue to represent you in the purchase. I would want my own representation.

You can't force the seller to negotiate through their agent if the listing has expired, but you can refuse to negotiate direct with the seller and insist that your agent represents you in the purchase, which I recommend you do in this situation. Given the slippery nature of these sellers, who seem to be suggesting that you each cast aside your agents like trash in the gutter, even after they have done a good job by all accounts, I could not possibly recommend you deal with them directly. After all, if they happy to trash their own agent out of a commission now they have a buyer in their sights (you), what makes you think they wouldn't try and cheat you out of something at the last minute as well? Such a person is not trustworthy. You can ask your agent to represent your offer through the original listing agent. If the sellers refuse to deal with the original listing agent, then I would withold the amount the listing agent would have got paid and have your agent present the reduced offer directly to the seller. When the listing agent finds out that a buyer they introduced to the property is purchasing it without them, they will then ask to get paid and you may then need to use the reserve amount to settle the matter. This is not legal advice, this is merely suggested negotiating tactics with what is obviously a very difficult seller. Good Luck.

Not if you wait a while. Neither of you need an agent at all. Sounds you are close to a deal and both of you will be able to walk away 3% richer no matter what the price. I am impressed with your skills!

This is not intended to serve as legal advice.

The expired agreement between the home owner and listing agent may contain language that protects buyers from losing his customer to the home owner immediately following the end of the agreement.

If such a clause did not exist, owners would be able to sell their home to the customer after the contract expired and avoid paying him/her a fee for professional services.

Mary, You don't have legal obligation with the listing/Broker, this is the seller obligation, however, you do have a Moral obligation with your realtor who showed the house to you. Do you work? we Realtor work a lot and our compensation in our profession is named comission. Good luck!!!!!

You are in a very tight spot. you viewed a listing with your agent. Was it a buyers agent, or a representative of the seller? If you were using a buyer agent you would have signed an agreement for the agent to represent you and you will be subject to the commission agreement for the period of the agreement and for properties that you viewed through them for a period after the agreement that was defined withing the agreement.

If however the agent represented the seller of the house and not you and the buyer contacted you to continue disucssions, I would not think you are in any way subject to the commission agreement. MAKE SURE THAT YOU SPEAK TO AN ATTORNEY FIRST to make sure that this is in fact correct, as I am only going by what you have stated. The seller may infact be subject to a commission to the expired listing agent, but that should be of no consequence to you, in my opinion....

Best of luck...

Douglas Montgomery, Broker/Owner
HomeNY Corp.