You don’t make up the rules as you go along.

With many parties in a real estate transaction, it is important that everyone works together, as best as possible.

I had some buyers looking for a second home condo in Aventura. There was a condo that they had interest in, but went on a vacation shortly after they saw it. The REALTOR® followed up multiple times, seeing if my buyers were interested, and reminding us that the sellers are motivated.

Normally, that sounds like a good REALTOR®, trying to work on getting the property sold for his sellers.

But once we put an offer in, he said that our offer was too low, and there were multiple offers all of a sudden. If there were multiple offers, why did he keep calling us, asking if we were submitting one?

We went back and forth a bit, settling on a price. My buyers signed the new offer and we submitted it, putting a 24 hour response deadline. We did that, because if there were multiple offers, we wanted the seller to sign asap, so no other offers beats us out.

The REALTOR® called me and said that it would take three days to sign the paperwork. When I asked why, he said, “Because that is how it is done.”

Wait, what? How is that an answer?! Electronic signatures make signing real estate contracts super easy, where people can sign on their phone, iPad, or computer.

After some pushing, he finally told us that the sellers were really old and lived in Chicago, so it wasn’t like he could drive over and have them sign it. Their son was going to go over and have them sign it within the next day or two, which is why they needed three days. Ok, that makes total sense.

But why would he withhold that information? It would have been much easier to say that from the beginning, so my buyers would have had a better understanding for the delay.

When you are under contract to buy a condo, the seller has to provide the buyer with the condo documents of the condo building for review. When I asked the listing agent for a copy of the condo documents, he said that the buyer had to give him a $100 deposit.

I emailed him back, reminding him that per the contract, the seller has to provide the condo documents, and there was nothing in the contract about the $100 deposit.

He responded with, “NO DEPOSIT NO BOOK.”

Clearly, this REALTOR® was making up his own rules. I called the seller’s attorney to let him know what was going on. He contacted the listing agent and told him to give us the condo documents.

His email to me was as follows, “I paid for this book. I never had any problems with getting the deposits. It’s REFUNDABLE in case if the closing is NOT taking place. BUT, as per our attorney’s advise I’ll give it to you tomorrow.”

He did give it to my buyers at the inspection, but in the elevator, he looked straight at me and said, “I just want you to know, I am right (about the condo documents).”

The property failed the inspection miserably. It needed a lot of work, but the bigger issue, was a number of leaks and possible mold behind the walls.

My buyers decided to cancel the deal. As a listing agent, you would want to know if a property had major issues like that. But not this guy, he never asked for the report.

Instead, he dragged his feet getting the cancellation signed. It took ten days of me reminding him and asking him to get it signed. He just kept saying, “The sellers are old.”

He should be smarter than that, because until he got the cancellation, he couldn’t sell the property to anyone else. It was in no one’s best interest to drag that out.

So, please be cautious of REALTORS® that make up their own rules.