Thread: Listing Contract Clause That Protects RE Agent

Originally Posted by [LEFT

HouseSellerNewbie[/LEFT];59649]Hi. I'm selling my house in the Pittsburgh Pennsylvania area. The Listing Contract I'm being asked to sign states I will owe a commission to my listing real estate agent if, within 3 months after the Listing Contract expires, I sell to a person "to whom the property was shown, presented or submitted by the Broker" unless I, as the Owner, "subsequently enter into a Standard Exclusive Listing Contract with another Subscriber of West Penn Multi-List, Inc."

I understand and agree with some safeguards for the listing agent. My question has to do with the "unless" part of the clause. Do the restrictions placed on me to take out the exact same type of listing contract (Std Exclusive Listing Contract) and to use only West Penn Multi-List as a multi-list company place unfair burden on me?

What if, after the contract expired:

I decided to take out a different type of listing contract?

Or wanted to go with an agency who used some other multi-listing company other than West Penn Multi-List (Is that possible? Or is West Penn Multi-List the only multi-list company servicing Pittsburgh?)

What if (God, forbid) I wanted to have another real estate agent who didn't even use the multi-list sell my house?

I wouldn't want to be having to owe two commissions to two different agents for the sale of my house!

All advice will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

HouseSellerNewbie

Our exclusive listing agreement just says any broker.

I doubt your listing would hold up in court the way it is written. The courts don't look favorably on restraint of trade type of activities.

An easy solution is to cross out "Standard Exclusive Listing Contract with another Subscriber of West Penn Multi-List, Inc." and write in something like "any listing agreement with any broker" and initial the changes. Make sure your agent initials the changes too.

This still protects your agent, which is fair, and it protects you from being stuck in the wrong MLS system if you find out this isn't the MLS where your property should be.

There will be only one MLS in your area and 99.99% of the agents will use it. If they don't you wouldn't want to use that agent anyway. I have also not really seen anything else than exclusive right to sell listing agreements, although there are others.
That protection period was really put in place to protect the agent for a situation such as where a buyer already saw your home due to the agents marketing and then possibly tried to go behind the agents back and tell the seller to cancel the listing agreement or wait until it expires if in a short period of time. This way the buyer could try to negoiate a better deal since they have cut out the agents commission.

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