December 7, 2024 • 57 mins
Today's episode, we discuss the arbitration case over earned real estate commissions we recently found ourselves in. In a claim that was brought against brokerage, we walk through how we effectively defended our commission and ultimately prevailed as the unlikely victors.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, welcome back to another episode of the
Real Life Investing Podcast withJason and Rachel Wagner.
We're going to go over a coolone today, because we're
actually kind of stillcelebrating this victory.
This is like a real, this is areal victory.
What was the victory, rach?
Speaker 2 (00:18):
We won the arbitration.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Yeah, so we won a arbitration case.
Yeah, so we won a arbitrationcase.
And in realtor world, anarbitration case is when you
have another agent that isactually putting in a claim of
the commission that you haveearned, saying that no, I
(00:41):
actually earned that commission.
You did not, I was theprocuring cause on this sale,
you were just another agent thatwas able to claim it, all right
.
So this type of stuff in thestate of Illinois it's actually
(01:12):
is what determines who earns thecommission on the buy side
transaction.
So, for example, a lot of timeswhen you show a property to a
client, the client likes theproperty and decides that they
want to move forward with anoffer.
Now, typically what happenshere is that because of that
(01:36):
showing the showing is whatcaused the buyer to like the
property, to then lead to anaction of putting in an offer
lead to an action of putting inan offer and it was whoever the
agent showed the property is theone that really is entitled to.
That commission, because it allstarted with the first showing
of that property, is what startsprocuring cause.
(01:56):
And so typically, as you'reworking with a real estate agent
, you go and tour a propertywith that agent, that agent goes
ahead and writes the offer foryou and you close the
transaction.
Everyone gets paid, seller getspaid, attorneys get paid and
that real estate broker thathelped you with that transaction
is going to get paid as well.
But let's just say you have aninstance where you have another
(02:17):
agent that showed the propertybut you another agent wrote the
offer, what happens here.
So this is an example of likeour actual case that occurred
and so we're going to go overthe details of what this case
was and it took.
(02:37):
I mean, we first got notice ofthis we closed on the property
back in february and we gotnotice of the, the arbitration
request in may and just twoweeks ago, two or three weeks
ago, we finally settled thatarbitration case for this
(03:01):
commission we won.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
we didn't didn't settle it, we won.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
We finally won.
That's right.
That's going back to thevictory stuff.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
There were attempts to settle, but we did not settle
.
We won.
Yeah, so are we going to?
So we had previously recordedwhat happened after the
mediation.
Are we going to publish thatand then tag this on to the
second half?
So there's that history.
Are we just going to kind?
Speaker 1 (03:21):
of start fresh here.
We might have to listen to that, but no, I think we should just
go over everything here.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Okay, so the whole thing, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Here's how to win an arbitration case.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Well, I don't know if I want to issue that
endorsement out there.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Well, here's how we won an arbitration case.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
All right, well, because you're kind of like the
legal expert, even though youare not an attorney, but you
just have like this legalesethat's like built up in your
stomach and just spews out.
It's pretty, it's prettyfabulous to uh to have in in a
situation like this.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Yeah, I did take a lot of pride when the mediator
asked me if I was an attorney.
I was just beaming.
I'm like no, I'm not, but Iwish I was.
If I could do it all over again, I probably would.
But as you've said many times,I'd be a very angry person if I
was an attorney.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Yeah, and so what's actually funny is that so you
can get an attorney to helprepresent you on these
arbitration cases, but thereality is is that the
commission wasn't enough to havean attorney included on this,
so we had to represent ourselves.
Because here's the thing, it'slike the commissioning question.
It was like $10,000.
(04:28):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Which is significant, for sure, yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
But that is not enough.
To pay an attorney to representyou on a case, right?
It's basically I don't knowwhat an attorney fee might be.
It might be the wholecommission, it might be more
than that, right?
So it literally makes nofinancial sense.
We are the ones that arecurrently holding the commission
(04:52):
, and then for us to say, well,we're going to hire an attorney
who might charge us that sameamount or more like it,
literally doesn't make any sense, so it leaves us with
representing ourselves in thiswhole process.
And now this arbitration processis a full-blown trial, Like it
is.
You're in front of the realtorboard.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Right, which is essentially the jury, which is a
jury.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
It's a panel of five people plus an alternate in case
somebody gets sick or somethingduring the middle of it.
And then you have openingstatements, you present your
evidence, you havecross-examination.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Or witnesses.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
No Cross-examination.
First you present the evidenceand then you can cross-examine
the evidence and ask questions,and then you have witness and
then you can cross-examine thewitness and then you have
closing statements.
Okay, this is a full-blowntrial.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
With no judge but.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Right.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
But the decision at the end of this arbitration is
all or nothing.
So this $10,000 is either goingto be retained by us or we're
going to have to pay it to thisother person that is claiming
that they are due the commissionRight.
So it's a big bet.
This is a big bet.
(06:15):
There's a lot of money on theline.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Yeah, for us, not the other side.
So that's what was prettyinteresting about this whole
thing too, is because ourbrokerage was the closing
brokerage for the deal.
We retained the commission andpaid it out the what would you
call them a claimant.
The claimant, you know, hadonly what?
250 dollars filed to claim orto submit this complaint, and
(06:41):
that's all the skin they had inthe game that's all the skin
that they had in the game.
Yeah, it's 250 bucks so theyjust come out and make this.
You can make wild, very limitedevidence.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
I feel you can make wild claims that you are the
ones that deserve the commission.
You can tie up somebody's timebecause, like if we were to
calculate the amount of timethat we put into preparation for
this, because, again, it's likegetting us all up to speed on
what is our case, finding outall the details, talking to a
(07:14):
witness, getting all the detailsfrom there and then being
prepared multiple times, well,and we had to submit it all in
writing.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
So you had to submit your write-up, submit all your
evidence, your exhibits, far inadvance, far in advance, yeah,
yeah.
So let's, let's go through thetimeline so you mentioned, you
know, property closed, or how doyou want to go through like
what actually happened with theclients and the broker.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Yeah, yeah so.
So essentially what happened isthat we had a repeat client
that was working with one of ouragents, and when I say repeat
client, there was also like evena close relationship, relative
tie to that client and the agent.
(07:57):
So this would have been theirthird transaction together and
so they Second and third becausethey had sold.
Yeah, second and second andthird transaction because they
were looking for their upgradehouse.
Our agent helped them buy theircurrent house.
They were looking for theirupgrade house and then our agent
helped them sell their theirhouse again.
(08:18):
Right, so, as they're lookingfor the upgrade house, they have
already establishedcommunications with our agent.
And, you know, when they saweach other at family events kind
of leading up to it, they'relike, hey, we're thinking about,
you know, next year is going tobe our time, and so, anyways,
they were kind of likepreliminaries to discussions
that already occurred.
And then, actually the morningof when the showing occurred,
(08:42):
they reached out to our agentand said, hey, we're ready to
like start looking at houses.
Like we're getting reallyserious.
You know, is there a time thatwe could sit down next week and
talk through some things?
And our agent response says, oh, that's awesome.
Yeah, great to hear.
We'd love to help you.
I'm actually out of town rightnow.
I'll be back next week onMonday, but happy to do that.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Yeah, so this was a Friday morning.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
This was a Friday morning.
He's just out of town for theweekend.
Yeah, so he's out of town forthe weekend.
And so the buyers, they goahead knowing that our agent is
out of town.
They really don't say anythingelse after that, but they just
know in their heads hey, youknow, let's, let's take a look
at, you know, Zillow.
And they found a house thatthey like, and so they clicked a
button on Zillow that said tourthis house.
(09:28):
And so what happens?
When you click that button onZillow, you are agreeing that
somebody's going to reach out toyou and try to set up a time to
go see the property.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Somebody, as in a potential buyer's agent.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
It is somebody who is trying to win your business.
You have no idea who thatperson is that's reaching out to
you, but it's a licensed agentwho is not listing the property
in question.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
They are just an agent looking to hopefully earn
your business.
Yes, so I think there's amisconception for many people
when they use Zillow and Redfinthat when you click book a tour
request that you're goingdirectly to the listing agent
and you're not, you're justgetting paired with some random
person out there who's payingZillow or Redfin or whoever to
get potential leads, so you getconnected with somebody who's
(10:14):
hoping to be your agent.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Yeah, yeah, and you know that that agent that you
ultimately end up meeting atthat property.
Some people don't even know whothat person is Like, they're
just.
They just know that, oh okay,you're the one that I was
talking to on the phone andsetting up the appointment.
There's been many cases whereI've heard where people have met
somebody and they're like youknow, so, you know, tell me
(10:37):
about the sellers, right?
Speaker 2 (10:38):
And then that agent has no idea about the sellers
because they're not the listingagent right, because there's
this misconception that you'rebooking the tour just with the
direct person listing it andit's the exact opposite.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Yep, Yep, Exactly.
And so when you are the agentin that situation.
So I've done this, I've done,I've done Zillow, and it's a
great way to meet potentialpeople and also just have an
opportunity where you couldmaybe help them with this
(11:08):
purchase.
More than likely, the person isnot going to buy this house,
the one that you're showing themfrom Zillow.
But I'm usually asking hey, areyou already working with an
agent or are you pre-approved,Like I'm just trying to like on
those tours?
You're just trying to find outsome information about them to
see if you could take it alittle bit further.
More than likely, what you endup doing is that you'll end up,
(11:29):
if they're not represented andyou have a good rapport with
them, you can find them anotherhouse.
But this first meeting isreally kind of like getting to
know them and like figuring outtheir situation.
You also know at the same timethat there's a potential chance
that that person walking in thedoor is already working with an
agent, that there's a potentialchance that that person walking
in the door is already workingwith an agent.
You are kind of rolling thedice on hey, this may not be
worth my time, but maybe it'ssomething.
(11:50):
I can develop a relationshipwith, or maybe the agent that
they're working with theyhaven't talked to in years, but
they'll say that they're workingwith somebody.
But you might develop a betterrelationship with them in which
there's a chance that you couldearn their business, and so this
is kind of like me puttingmyself in the claimant's shoes.
(12:11):
Here is that that is kind ofhow he treated the situation.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Yeah, so clients hit book tour requests.
They get a tour for later thatafternoon.
They get the call from thisother agent.
We'll refer to them as theZillow agent.
That's the easiest way and theybook the time and they go and
view the house, spend about 15,20 minutes walking through with
this agent.
The Zillow agent gives themlike a marketing binder that had
(12:39):
some things in there about hisbrokerage and himself, and then
they part ways.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Yeah, in that marketing binder they also had
like hey he.
He gave a preliminary estimateof what the house was.
He thought it was overpriced.
Yeah, that's true, so inconversation, those were good
details to include here, becauseso, basically, that agent had
tried to show that they had donesome homework on the on the
property and said you know, wethink the house is overpriced
and, you know, actually gavethem an opinion on that.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Yeah, and by opinion.
It was a couple printouts oflistings with some red marker
notes on there.
It wasn't anything formal orthat was drawn up in like an
actual analysis report and itwas very informal.
Just a couple scribbles, yep,and then the Zillow agent was
able to obtain the client'scontact information and took
(13:30):
that as I'm going to sign you upfor emails.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Yep Emails from MLS to get other searches, yep.
So he probably asked them onthe showing, you know, oh, do
you have a current house?
And because he was able toobtain that address, and he set
them up with the automated MLSsearch, and so, anyways, they do
part ways after that and he setthem up with the automated MLS
search and so, anyways, they dopart ways after that and those
(13:55):
buyers end up calling our agentand saying, hey, I know this is
out of the blue, but we justwent and saw a house, we really
kind of like it and we'd like toget your opinion on it,
considering maybe putting in anoffer.
And our agent responds with, oh, wow, okay, sounds great.
I mean, you guys are reallymoving and shaking.
(14:17):
Let me give you a call here ina little bit.
And so they discussed theproperty.
Our agent also asked hey, yousaw the house.
He was actually wondering howthey saw the house, and so they
told him that you know that theybooked it through Zillow.
And you know his first questionwas hey, did you sign anything
with this other agent?
(14:38):
And they said, oh, no, no, youknow we had full intention, like
we were just going to see itand you know you were going to
be our agent.
And he says okay, and so theyproceed to move forward on kind
of next steps and really thisthey had just started their
search and they weren't evenpre-approved yet, right?
So they, they had a house tosell.
They weren't really sure ifthey could buy the next house
(14:59):
without selling that, and sothey you know our agent ended up
introducing them to a lenderjust to get them pre-approved
and kind of figure out theirtheir situation.
So that was that night.
This is still like Friday night, the day of the showing.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Yeah, and our agent also made contact with the
co-listing agent that firstnight just to see what was going
on with the property and theco-listing agent said well, I'll
definitely let you know, youknow, if we end up asking for
highest and best.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Yep, but they at the time they didn't have any offers
.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
They did not.
At the time they didn't haveany offers on the property, so
he just called the check status.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Yep, so that's an important piece there.
And so a couple of days go by.
Now we get to Sunday and thebuyers now have a pre-approval.
The buyers have sat on it.
The buyers had talked to ouragent and said we'd like to go
see it with you when you comeback.
And our agent is coming back onMonday, and they were going to
(15:59):
originally do that.
However, our agent wanted tocheck in again and just figure
out, because he had that firstinitial phone call.
He had found out that, oh,actually, the seller has
received another offer and nowthey're requesting highest and
best by Sunday, and our agentrelays that information to the
(16:21):
buyer, letting them know hey,actually, you know, we can't
wait until Monday.
They're asking for highest andbest because now they have
multiple offers and if youreally like this house, like we
need to, we need to submit.
And so that caused our buyersto then all of a sudden be
motivated to submit the offer.
(16:42):
Okay, they felt confident fromthat first showing, from what
they saw, to submit the offer.
And so we came up with apricing strategy and a way to
win, using escalation clausesand just more of a sophisticated
way to write the offer,ultimately, end up winning,
(17:02):
ultimately end up doing theinspection, moving forward
closing on the transaction.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Okay so and well, let's just also add in here.
So about eight days after thatinitial Zillow request they hear
back from the Zillow agent forthe first time and the Zillow
agent emails them a genericemail and just says hey, you
guys went radio silent on me.
(17:28):
Is there anything else I can behelping you with?
You got any questions?
Let me know.
Send a real generic email.
Two days later the clientsrespond to him and just say
sorry, we've put our search onhold and no longer need any help
.
And then they were unsubscribedfrom the searches, the MLS
search that they set up, andthat was all the communication.
(17:49):
That was it.
So in between that, eight days,no follow-up phone call, no
text messages, no email specificto that property, no
communication.
Just eight days until thatgeneric email.
And then that was it.
That was all the communicationthey had with that agent.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Yeah.
And so as we get into threemonths post closing, I receive
an email from the competingbrokerage here, from that Zillow
agent, saying we saw that thisproperty closed with one of your
agents.
We were actually the one thatshowed the property first and
we're filing a procuring causeclaim on it.
(18:27):
And so when you file aprocuring cause claim, you have
to submit your evidence.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
And so that evidence didn't they ask you like a
question, Like do you haveanything to yeah, yeah At first
at first.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
they reached out to me and I and I responded back
with him and just said I don'tagree with the claim.
This is a repeat client andthat was it.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
So you said, and their family, I think.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Yes, repeat client and their family of our, of our
agent, and so super shortresponse.
Okay, well, that led into themproviding all of the evidence
that they had.
Well, actually submitting theand submitting the submitting
the arbitration request, and soyou don't have to directly go to
(19:11):
arbitration, where you're infront of a panel.
You have an opportunity whereyou can go to mediation.
Mediation is where it's reallymore of an informal practice,
but it's led by a mediator whoyou have an opportunity to kind
of present both sides of thecase and both sides will be
there discuss.
So we went, the other partieswere there as well, and during
(19:41):
that mediation we actually kindof learned a lot.
We learned about it from ourperspective is that the mediator
defined what procuring cause is, and why don't you just read
over that definition real quick?
Speaker 2 (19:56):
well, he actually didn't define what procuring
causes.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
He asked us to define it but he asked us to define it
.
But he ended up going into theprocuring cause definition.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Yeah.
So it says a broker will beregarded as the procuring cause
of a sale, so as to be entitledto the commission, if his
efforts are the foundation onwhich the negotiations resulting
in a sale are begun, a causeoriginating a series of events
which, without break in theircontinuity, results in the
(20:26):
accomplishment of the primeobjective of the employment of
the broker, who is producing apurchaser who's ready, willing
and able to buy real estate onthe owner's terms.
So some key things I'll justpoint out in there is that the
efforts have to be thefoundation on which the
transaction started.
So what actually caused theseries of events to begin?
(20:49):
And there was no break in thecontinuity of the series events.
So that is very critical.
We'll get to that.
And then also the broker has tobe producing a purchaser who's
ready, willing and able to buyreal estate on the client's own
terms.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
So all of those things are key things we'll get
into here in a minute yeah, Ithink you know from the other
perspective you may be hearingthis and you're like Jason.
I have no idea how you won this.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Right, because, well, we were certainly concerned at
the beginning too, because we'relike, well, technically, the
Zillow agent showed the propertyand the showing of the property
is what led them to submit anoffer.
And, of course, the claimant'sargument was we did the work, we
showed a comparative marketanalysis and we showed the
property and your agent justwrote up the offer.
(21:36):
And from the surface and fromhigh level and from afar, that's
definitely what it looks like.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
When we first got that we were shaken in our boots
.
We thought we were totally done.
We thought that we were goingto lose this in our boots.
We thought we were totally done.
We thought that we were goingto lose this.
Although, as you start, what welearned during that mediation
was that there were holes, andthis is when the expertise of Ms
Rachel over here was able toreally kind of pinpoint some
(22:06):
things that look, when you startsaying what started the series
of events without interruption,it could be the showing yeah,
and I think that's what in mosttransactions, you're going to
argue what started the series ofevents of a transaction showing
the property showing theproperty yeah, when I saw the
property then I decided I wantedto move on it right super
(22:27):
simple, high level right.
Well, you could say well, peoplemake, you know it't necessarily
.
That couldn't necessarilyhappen, because sometimes people
make blind offers on properties, right.
So part of me was like well,I'm taking that angle was that
(22:54):
there was no follow-up from thatZillow agent after he showed
the property for eight days?
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Right, which created a break.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Which created a break which created an opportunity
for our agent to do actions tocreate a new chain of events.
And really what we provedduring this arbitration case was
that the chain of events didnot start with the showing.
The chain of events startedonce our agent found out there
(23:26):
were multiple offers on theproperty, which then caused our
buyers to be motivated to submitthe offer.
Without that notification ofmultiple offers, they would have
went and saw the property onthat Monday with our agent and
then there would have been noprocuring cause claim at all.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
He would have already lost it right.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
Yeah, he would have totally lost it right, Because
then they showed the propertyagain then, which led to the
offer and eventually closing thetransaction.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
And some things that helped us prove that were there
were still text messagecommunications that our broker
still had record of.
That clearly showed that, okay,we're gonna sit on it for the
weekend, we'll connect with youon Monday.
So there was clearcommunication that showed we
weren't ready to submit an offerFriday night.
We also weren't ready to submitan offer Saturday.
(24:17):
We weren't even pre-approved.
It was not until the brokermade that phone call to the
listing agent and then back tothe client and said, hey, you
guys are going to have to make adecision or you're going to
lose it, right.
And so having that writtendocumentation of text messages
um was key because otherwise itwould have been hearsay really,
(24:40):
which maybe still would have won.
But I think it would have beenharder for people to believe
that, especially knowing, likethe relationship and stuff.
I think yeah, yeah, so like holdup before you go any further, I
wanted to go into um,relationship and stuff.
I think yeah, yeah.
So, like I also hold up, beforeyou go any further, I wanted to
go into um.
So, as you go through the quoteof ethics and arbitration
manual, there's it's like whatis this?
Like 10 pages, it goes intowhat defines a break in the
(25:02):
series of events, and so this iswhat the argument really came
down to is whether or not therewas abandonment from the agent.
So in this case, the Zillowagent.
Did the Zillow agent abandonthe client?
And so, because he waited eightdays to reach out and his
reaching out didn't even consistof a follow-up of that specific
property, we were able to provethat he, or argue that he
(25:26):
abandoned the client.
He didn't make any effort andwe argued you know, in a spring
market in February, what are youdoing?
Waiting eight days to follow upwith somebody who went to see a
property on a Friday?
We were also able to prove that,like he didn't even contact the
listing agent to find outinformation about that property,
to know that there weremultiple offers.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
And I want to add to this too, because the mediation
is really where we learned a lotabout these guys and the way
the confidence that was shownduring that mediation proved
that this was more of a schemeand this wasn't necessarily them
(26:06):
trying to do good faith efforthere, and this was, this was a
total scheme.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
No, because had he actually reached out to the
clients, we probably would havelost.
Right, Honestly had he justmade a phone call or a text
message, it would have been alot harder for us to win, and
how do I know it was a scheme.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
Okay, so here's what he stated during the mediation.
Is that, well, the clientshowed that they had extreme
interest in the property and wekind of immediately questioned
and said, well, if they hadextreme interest, why didn't you
reach out to them?
Speaker 2 (26:40):
I asked that question right away and he's like well,
I probably did.
I got to sit here and search inmy text messages.
And then he starts scrollinghis phone for five minutes.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
He thinks that he reached out to the client again
after the showing.
In reality, all he did was setup an MLS search.
He didn't ask them anythingabout that current property that
they just saw.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
He didn't ask them if they wanted to see other
properties.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
No, he just sent them MLS searches.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Here's more properties for you to look at
Automated MLS searches.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
Automated which is different, not hand-selected
Automated and then sent afollow-up email eight days later
saying hey, you guys went radiosilent on me.
Any questions for me in thearbitration is that well, I'll
(27:31):
cross-reference after publicrecord showing who now owns
those properties.
Compare that to who I've shownthe properties and then file a
procuring cause, claim and youknow what the amount of
confidence.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
I can't say this for a fact, but my hunch is the
amount of confidence that theseguys showed during the first
mediation was that they had beenin this situation before and
they had won and he's a realestate agent, and then the two
(28:10):
agents on the opposing side, youand our agent, and then me and
I actually did the presenting,which was probably really good
because both both Jason and thisother guy were definitely
heated.
Even the mediator at one pointsaid, wow, both sides are quite
confident.
It was kind of funny.
But seriously, within like twominutes this guy, like his
(28:30):
physical body language, was justthrowing arms up in the air and
making you know obnoxiousgestures and just trying to find
like the right word to describeI would say arrogant.
I wouldn't have said confidence.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
I would have said arrogance.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
He was very aggressive to the point where,
seriously, within two minutes ofme talking, showing our case
and then asking him a follow-upquestion, the mediator had to
tell him to calm down.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
Right, I mean, he was just so crazy.
That's the type of hothead wewere dealing with on the other
side.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
That's a great way to put it.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Yeah, he was very.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
He could not control his emotions around this.
And it's crazy because, again,it would have been a much
stronger argument had he triedto win that business but he
didn't.
So to have that level ofarrogance, knowing you never
even followed up with theseclients, they never followed up
with you and now you think youcan claim $10,000 of commission,
was just like.
What kind of person are you?
(29:24):
Yeah, it was just crazy.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
to me it was a scheme right, and so again, let's
describe what the scheme is here.
So the scheme is here.
So the scheme is is that I showthe property.
I'm a Zillow agent.
I get connected with buyers,you know, maybe five to six a
month or something like that.
It could be more Okay and so Iwill go and meet those buyers
and show the properties.
(29:47):
Okay, I'll do my best, you know,try to set a rapport, get them
on an MLS search.
Maybe they'll reach out again.
But I won't actually do anyfollow-up with them.
You know that's all myfollow-up because I know chances
are the people aren't going tobuy that house.
They're going to buy a house.
You know from me, you knowthat's down the road and so part
(30:10):
of my process is going to be.
Well, maybe once a year or twicea year I'm going to go back and
I'm going to check what are allthe houses that I showed
through Zillow, who were thoseclients and do they own any of
the houses that I showed, right?
And if they do, and how do Ifind out of the houses?
(30:31):
Because it's all public record,right?
And so the moment that youclose on a property now, three
months later, the county recordswho is the owner of that
property.
And if you don't have it in anllc, it's going to go in your
personal name and that personalname is going to be shown.
If you just do a little digging,go out to the county site, you
can see who owns that property.
(30:51):
You can also check in the MLSto see that, oh, it was done
through this agent.
And now, oh, I see that Johnand Susie bought that house over
there.
I was actually the one showingit, but Sally, the real estate
agent in that brokerage, they'rethe one that closed down in the
MLS.
So now I can tell my managingbroker over here hey, I was
(31:12):
actually the procuring cause andI could show them that I showed
that property, show them thework that I did.
And now my managing brokerthinks that I'm the one that did
all the work and he's going tofile the claim against that
other brokerage.
And that's exactly whathappened.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Yeah, so I wanted to go back.
We were going through thedefinitions of how you prove a
break in the chain of events.
So the first one was provingabandonment, which I think we've
already said several times.
He abandoned the clients by notfollowing up the listing agent,
not following up the clientspecifically on that property,
and he waited eight days for anycommunication at all.
The second piece isestrangement, and that would be
the opposite side, that theclients chose to estrange
(31:51):
themselves from the agent, andthen you have to say why, that
there had to have been a reason,something that the agent did
that they didn't like, and inour situation it was fit.
And the analysis of theproperty that the agent gave you
know he gave them an argument Ithink we said this in our first
write-up that he said oh, Iactually know the listing agent
(32:11):
here and they have a history oflisting the property low, so I
think you could get this for20,000 below listing price,
which is laughable.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
I have a history of listing at high.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Oh, that's yes.
That's what I meant to say,nice.
Okay, so he suggested to themthat they could get it 20,000
below.
And the clients are like, no,no way that that's accurate, you
know so they were very politewith this agent but that was
enough for us to show and we hadthat in the write up that he
gave for his comparative marketanalysis.
(32:42):
That showed that.
That was enough to show that.
You know that the clientsestranged from him.
So we had both abandonment andestrangement to show the break
in the chain of events.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
Yeah, Right.
So ultimately it comes down toyeah, the showing did a lot, but
was it the procuring cause ofthe sale?
And that's where it takes awell-crafted argument to prove
that procuring cause did notstart with the showing.
Prove that procuring cause didnot start with the showing.
(33:14):
It started with actions thatcame after that.
And the actions that came afterthat were from our broker, who
informed them through follow-upfrom across the country, through
a few phone calls.
Those actions were what causedthe sale and so notifying the
buyers.
Hey, there's multiple offers,we can't wait any longer.
(33:34):
As much as you want me to geteyes on this, I can't, but if
you want it, we have to submitan offer now.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Right, because, like you said early on in this
episode, had the agent not madethat phone call to the listing
agent you know they they were onvacation, so they certainly
didn't need to do any work.
But had they not made thatphone call, the agent, our agent
and the clients would havenever known that that property
was requesting highest and bestoffers and if they waited till
(34:02):
Monday they would have missedout.
And then I think at one pointwe even argued had they gone
with the Zillow agent, they alsowouldn't have known because he
didn't follow up.
And had they submitted an offerthat was arguably $20,000 below
listing price, they wouldn'thave been close in the
competitive range because theyhad multiple offers.
So all of these scenarios wouldhave resulted in no commission
(34:22):
in question.
So it really came down solely toour agent's actions and then
the client becoming ready,willing and able to buy real
estate.
So that was the other piece ofthis, and the definition is that
the client had to be ready,willing and able to buy real
estate on their terms and at thetime that they show saw the
property on Friday, they werenot pre-approved and they also
(34:44):
had not made a decision to wantto put in an offer.
It was not until Sunday thatthey were then pre-approved and
they had made the decision tomove forward on the property.
So all three of those things, Ithink, is what won this.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Yeah, totally.
What's really funny is so webrought in a witness in this
arbitration case and the witnesswas the buyer.
Before, before the buyer comesin, you know, the opposing party
says in his opening remarks hesays you know, you're going to
(35:21):
hear, as he's presenting to thepanel, you're going to hear the
other side parade their witnessin and their witness is going to
lie about all kinds of things.
And I just thought it was justso fascinating that you would
start with letting you know thatthis buyer is going to lie, in
which, just five minutes priorto that, we had all raised our
(35:45):
right hand and said we swear totell the truth, the whole truth
and nothing but the truth, whichis really funny.
But you know, we swear to tellthe truth, the whole truth and
nothing but the truth, which isreally funny.
It's so like it is a veryserious setting.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
And he opens his opening remarks with saying well
, the witness is going to lieand so, anyways, we had just
obnoxious, especially whenyou're trying to argue that you
earn the commission from thatperson's transaction.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Right, right.
Yeah, it's not a good approachto take if you're trying to win
over a panel, in my opinion,from that person's transaction.
Right, you've got some seriousballs, man.
Yeah, it's not a good approachto take if you're trying to win
over a panel, in my opinion,because you haven't really you
don't insult the client.
No, and you certainly didn'tprove that he lied about
anything, so that was anotherprice.
But so each side does have anopportunity to ask the witness
questions, and so we all knowthat the witness is coming in.
(36:32):
You have to give at least15-day notice that there's going
to be a witness there, and wegave plenty of notice.
Honestly, this arbitration wassupposed to be scheduled like a
month and a half in advance ofwhen it actually took place, but
it ended up getting canceled bythe other side because of
scheduling conflicts, in whichreally grinded our gears,
because it got canceled the weekof, so we were already
(36:55):
preparing to be ready to go, andthen it got canceled, and then
it got delayed for like anothermonth and a half.
So then we had to re-prepareagain.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Well, and what's so frustrating about this is like
so we had done the mediation andthen we're waiting for the
arbitration to get scheduled.
Well, when you do that, you haveto submit in writing your
entire write-up, all yourdocumented evidence and who
you're calling as your witness.
So you've got to put all ofthis effort and work up front.
So that's when you're mostprepared to go in and do this
argument right.
And then each side gets theopposing party's write-up.
(37:25):
So they then get our write-upand then they request this
extension.
So then they get even more time.
Like you said, it was like amonth and a half where they got
even more time with our writtenargument to review and prepare,
and then a month and a halflater, like we haven't been
sitting here every day reviewingthe details, preparing to go
into this and the whole, thewhole key to winning any
(37:46):
argument, I feel like in anytrial, is being prepared.
Like you need to know the casein and out.
You need to know every detail,because the second they say
something you need to be readyto clarify or question or prove
wrong.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
You're so right.
You're so right Because,actually, as I called our
attorney, Kathleen, and I toldher, I said you won't believe
this, but we won, we won baby.
And she's like oh my God, I'mso happy for you.
And she's like she's like, ohmy god, I'm so happy for you
she's like she was like she washonestly shocked.
She's like, honestly, I thoughtthat you guys were going to
split.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Well, that was her recommendation in the beginning
when we talked to her is justoffer something, and we did in
the mediation.
So that's what was interestingwhen we talked about the
confidence and the arrogance isinitially we offered like a
showing fee.
That was our kind of insulting,like yeah, we'll give you 250
bucks for showing the propertyor whatever, and that was a no
and then eventually we came backto 50 50 50 we were gonna.
(38:36):
We offered him 50 of thecommission.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
He still said no yeah , I, I that was.
I couldn't believe.
Like you're sitting there, youcan't find any communication
with the client that was theconfidence and the arrogance
from the other side and it justthat, that type of denial, they
said that they would settle at75.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
Yeah, they wanted 75% of the commission and they
couldn't find a singlecommunication with the client.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
That type of arrogance and confidence.
Just it really proved to methat they had been there before.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
Right yeah, and probably had won, and so that
was scary for us.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
It was totally scary.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
What are we missing?
Why are these guys thisconfident and they kept saying
this in the mediation is whatstarted the chain of events was
the showing.
The showing started the chainof events.
It doesn't matter that you werealready established with an
agent, it doesn't matter that hedid the work afterwards.
We started the chain of events.
So we won the commission andwe're sitting there just like
crap.
Yeah, because in reality.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
Like you know, we know the rules, but we don't
know them in that fine detail.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
Yeah, we were not.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
And so are we missing something?
And so sure again, like when wefirst started this episode, we
were saying like, in reality, Ithought we were totally toast, I
thought we were totally toast,I thought we did something wrong
, I thought we did it wrong.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
In which I'm not going to lie we, we certainly
had a fault here.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
Right, we did not reach out to the agent and say
hey, I know that you, you know,show the property, but I've
actually been working with theseguys and you know,
unfortunately, courtesy callagain yeah, and so, and so we,
we recognize that we had a faultthere, um, and we weren't
perfect, and so we recognizedthat we had a fault there and we
weren't perfect, and so, but atthe same time, you know, and
(40:16):
that was kind of our offeringduring the mediation hey, okay,
we recognize you did some work.
Here's a showing fee.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
Right, it was also kind of like a backhanded offer.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
Well, yeah, you know, 250 bucks I mean for an hour's
worth of work.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
It was like 15 minutes, Like it wasn't even an
hour.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
Well, a little preparation driving there.
Okay, you know $250, not bad,right Okay?
Speaker 2 (40:42):
Literally very fair.
You printed the slides from theMLS.
You didn't even do your ownanalysis.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
But sure yeah, sure Right, but sure I get yeah sure,
right even a 50, 50, fivethousand dollars is an insane
offer.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
Yeah, I was shocked.
It's an insane offer.
The broker was willing to offerthat.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
You and I were kind of like, okay, yes, well, let's
see, it's your money so so oncewe both parted, once we parted
ways from that mediation, we'relike we're gonna win this and
we're find a way to win, and wereally kind of figured it out.
I don't know what it was, butwe fit, I think, what we figured
out.
I read an article.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
Well, you read an article an article that went
into the abandonment and theestrangement.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
Okay and that and that's really good, and I think
we also, and then we also justremembered everything that we
learned from about these guysduring that mediation.
This guy did not have proof offollow-up and he didn't submit
it as part of his evidence.
He also didn't submit it aspart of his final evidence.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
Yeah, so we were waiting for that.
So what we had from the initialarbitration was their initial
write-up.
They have the burden of initialproof or whatever, but as we
were sitting there in themediation, he's scrolling
through his phone.
He's like, oh, I know, I've gotit, I know, I've got it in here
.
Like I know, I followed up withthem.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
And I think you asked again like did you find it?
Speaker 2 (41:57):
Yeah, I asked several times in there because I knew
if he had that we lost.
Yeah, and so we said that thewhole time scheduled we each had
to submit our packets orwhatever.
And I'm looking through theirsubmittal.
I'm like they changed nothing,not a single word on their
submittal.
They didn't.
I'm like they have nothing.
They have nothing else.
Like they should have madetheir write-up so much stronger
(42:19):
but they literally had nothingelse to add.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
yeah, they had nothing else.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
They had nothing and he finally admitted in the
actual arbitration.
When you questioned, you know,did you follow up with him?
So in the mediationiation he'slike, oh yeah, I did.
You know he's scrolling hisphone.
But then in the arbitration youasked and he's like no, well,
why not?
What did he say?
I didn't have time or something.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
He said he didn't have an opportunity.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
He didn't have an opportunity to yeah Within
Because they had alreadysubmitted of followup.
Yeah yeah, you didn't create anopportunity cause you didn't
(42:58):
follow up with the listing agentto find out the timeframe.
I mean just basic, basic agenttasks, right, like even before
you go to the show.
I want you to reach out to thelisting agency.
What's going on?
Speaker 1 (43:07):
Yeah, what I want to go back to was that when you
have this witness is so you havean opportunity to be prepared,
and what you said was it allcomes down to who is the most
prepared in these cases.
It's exactly what Kathleen saidWhenever she's one, she says it
all comes down to who is mostprepared in any type of any type
of trial case, not justarbitrations between realtor
(43:28):
commissions, but like she alsolitigatesates and we had 45
questions for our witness 45 theamount of questions that the
other side presented was justfive yeah, and we had questions
prepared for for the zillowagent as well, which we weren't
even totally sure you were goingto be able to question him, but
(43:49):
we had them prepared anyway,just in case.
Right, yeah.
Yeah, we weren't totally clearon what the whole process was.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
Yeah, it was like walking in blind.
Speaker 1 (43:57):
But at the same time.
That's just our overpreparation here was that we
were prepared for a number ofdifferent scenarios If we had a
chance to actually question theother side.
We had a list of like 20questions that were available.
I didn't give them all 20, butI, yeah, I gave them a number of
(44:18):
them and and, honestly, as I Ikind of went off, I went off
script too because I was sosharp, right?
Speaker 2 (44:22):
that's why you have to be prepared, so you can go
off script.
Speaker 1 (44:24):
Yeah, I was so sharp in the details because you're
going to get all of thesequestions from the panel and if
you can't give a response thatis very coherent, confident, and
ties to your argument.
Yeah, and be quick with it,Right?
It doesn't help your argument.
(44:45):
And so you just have to knowthe facts.
And we were just way moreprepared.
And so what do we say?
Like going into it and thencoming out of it.
God, we're going to crush theseguys.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
Like we actually wanted to crush them.
Speaker 2 (45:01):
Well, after, after the behavior at the mediation,
like I had told you after this,I said you know, had he not
behaved the way he did at themediation, I didn't know that my
drive would have been as strongto come out and literally say I
wanted to crush him.
But because of how he acted andhow he treated me, I was just
like this guy cannot win, thisguy doesn't deserve to win.
He didn't even do the work, youknow.
(45:22):
And then to be that arrogantand disrespectful in that
setting, I was like you're goingto lose.
We are literally going to showyou and you're going to lose.
Speaker 1 (45:36):
Yeah, yeah, so we had our prepared remarks.
It took me about 10 minutes topresent my first initial
evidence, and then I had about afive minute closer too, and
really one of the closers was,you know, just kind of outlying
the scheme.
Speaker 2 (45:47):
Yeah, it went into ethics which.
I don't know if that helped ordidn't, but it was kind of like
a okay panel.
You're all real estate agentsyourself, and is this the type
of scheme you want going Like?
Is this really the intent ofprocuring cause?
Speaker 1 (46:00):
Right?
Is it Right?
No, is it the intent of havingZillow agents not follow up with
anybody, not show really anyfiduciary duty, just be there to
open a door, not?
Speaker 2 (46:10):
show really any fiduciary duty, just be there to
open a door.
Well, we even went as far as togo into.
You know what is disclosed tothe client when they click book
a tour on Zillow, because itclearly says that they're under
no obligation to work with theagent that they get paired with
and then also showing the termsand conditions of being a Zillow
agent.
It clearly says you do not havean exclusive right to this
agent or to this client.
Clearly says you do not have anexclusive right to this agent
or to this client and in orderto represent them, you have to
(46:34):
get written.
What's it called?
Exclusive, whatever?
exclusive agreement or whatever,but basically have an agreement
with them that says you'rerepresenting them, so like this
guy agrees to this as being partof a Zillow agent, and then
it's like ask you what I'm goingto go after this commission
even though I didn't do anythingExcept show the property.
Speaker 1 (46:56):
He showed the property, yeah.
And so we questioned them atthe end and just said you know,
we don't agree that a favorableruling in their favor is the
idea behind procuring cause,because it's totally replicable.
Speaker 2 (47:10):
Right.
And then you went as far to sayand if it is, I've got a bunch
of procuring cause claims myself.
Speaker 1 (47:16):
Totally, totally, because I could set up the exact
same thing and I could say well, I'm going to go back of all
those Zillow tours that I showedand I'm going to
cross-reference with now whoowns a property.
Speaker 2 (47:25):
And some of them did happen, because you did get
phone calls a couple of timesfrom agents who's like hey, like
we said hey, you showed aproperty to my clients, just
reaching out to let you knowthey're my clients, yeah, right.
Speaker 1 (47:36):
And you're like, all right, yeah, whatever, and you
walk away and that's happened,that has totally happened, and
you know it is what it is andI've never filed any type of
procuring cause, no, but again,if we would have lost this, it
would have set up an opportunity.
Well, now I could totallyexploit procuring cause because
we just lost that, so now Icould go do it to somebody else.
(47:57):
Right, it just sets up aterrible precedent.
Speaker 2 (48:00):
Well, and I think so.
One thing we were concernedabout is some of the panel
members and being agents beforeservices like Zillow and Redfin
existed.
Right before services likeZillow and Redfin existed, right
Like historically, it was kindof the showing that was the
basis for procuring cause,because historically clients
couldn't just go out there andbook tours.
They had to go to a brokerage'swebsite and get truly connected
(48:24):
with an.
They either had to have anagent themselves or they had to
reach out to the listingbrokerage website and get a tour
.
These services that allowclients to just see a property
on the same day didn't existbefore and so there was a little
bit of concern about anybody onthe panel who may not be able
to get past the mindset of theshowing is procuring cause.
The showing is procuring cause.
(48:44):
Whoever presented the propertyto the client wins, but you have
to go and look Well.
The Zillow agent didn't presentthe property.
The client wins, but you haveto go and look Well.
The Zillow agent didn't presentthe property.
The client presented theproperty right Like.
The Zillow agent didn't doanything to find that property,
to present it to the client.
The client actually did itthemselves and they did it under
the notion that they were justbooking a tour.
(49:05):
They weren't looking to find anagent.
Speaker 1 (49:14):
So the Zillow and the Redfin have kind of created a
little bit of a I don't knowwhat the word is, but they've
changed how you can't say Redfinbecause they have a different
model.
So Redfin does it totallydifferent.
You would get connected to anactual Redfin agent, I believe.
Speaker 2 (49:22):
Yeah but that's the same thing.
Speaker 1 (49:25):
No, no, no, no, no.
Redfin actually has agents.
Redfin is a brokerage.
Zillow is not a brokerage.
Speaker 2 (49:31):
Oh, I see, because Redfin is a brokerage that makes
the difference.
But even still they're gettingconnected with somebody who
wants to represent the client asan agent.
Speaker 1 (49:39):
No, Redfin actually has their own agents.
Speaker 2 (49:42):
Yes, and those agents want to represent the client.
Speaker 1 (49:46):
Well, yes, All right, sorry.
Yes, you're right.
Yeah, they want to representthe client Ultimately at the end
of the day, like you know, thequestion that should have been
asked is are you working withanother agent right now, Because
our buyers probably would havesaid, yes, we are.
Speaker 2 (50:04):
Yes, yeah.
Speaker 1 (50:06):
And we've been working with him on our last
transaction and we intend towork with him on, you know,
moving forward.
Speaker 2 (50:12):
And, in fairness, the clients couldn't remember if
that question was asked.
But as we talked with them, mytake on that was you would have
remembered Because it was neverasked.
You would have rememberedbecause it would have made you
uncomfortable.
Speaker 1 (50:24):
We asked the other side if they had asked the
buyers are you working withanother agent?
He said no.
Speaker 2 (50:30):
He said no, he didn't ask that question because in
the mediation he didn't rememberright, yeah, well, he didn't
ask that question yeah, soanyways, and so yeah yeah,
ultimately that was a big, thatwas a big victory it was worth
the work
Speaker 1 (50:45):
yeah, yeah, I really kind of look at this as like boy
.
That was like, yeah, like, whenyou do business, when you do a
lot of transactions, the realityis that you're going to open
yourself up to potentiallawsuits, and that's just what
business is.
Is that there is a like you'realways going to have something
(51:05):
that you know may not go perfect.
You know you put in your bestpractices to make sure that you
you mitigate that risk, and youknow we've we've certainly put
in more.
You know additional practicesin which we, we knew, like when
I first heard about this like ah, shoot, we should have, we
should have followed up, and ouragent knows that.
(51:27):
But at the same, at the sametime, you have to be ready to
fight and we totally could havejust laid down here and we
almost did.
We offered 50%.
But the fact is is that you canwin these things if you just
get the details.
Just get the details and youreally learn.
(51:49):
What is the ruling, what arethe outlines here that they have
for you, what's the evidence?
And when we put it all together, we had a way, stronger
argument going into arbitrationthan we did mediation and from
that perspective, that was justinsanely refreshing.
(52:10):
It's one of my in my opinion,one of our best career things to
hang our hats on, because,again, we're not lawyers,
realtors.
I'm a realtor.
Speaker 2 (52:20):
If I could offer any advice to anybody who has a
procuring cause claim, it wouldbe read the procuring cause
section of the code of ethicsand arbitration manual and all
of the questions on thearbitration worksheet.
That was really helpful becausein theory, the panel is sitting
there with the worksheetanswering those questions yes or
no and that gives you an ideaof where your evidence falls as
(52:41):
far as which way things aregoing to tilt, and it helps you
formulate your argument.
So then the questions areanswered in your favor.
Speaker 1 (52:49):
Yeah, yeah and just be favor.
Speaker 2 (52:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (52:51):
Yeah, and just be prepared.
Know the facts, know all thefacts and ask a ton of questions
.
Speaker 2 (52:57):
Ask a ton of questions and make sure to like,
when you're responding toquestions or your witnesses are
responding to questions, they'reactually responding to the
question asked and not like thebigger picture, Like because
when they are making theargument of you know well, the
showing is what started thechain of events and blah, blah,
blah, blah, and it's like, well,hold on, let's dive a little
bit deeper.
When did your desire topurchase the property exist?
(53:21):
It wasn't after the showing, itwas after you heard that it was
competitive and you had to makea decision, Right.
So, like it's just like reallydiving into those, those details
and listening exactly to thequestion, Right.
Speaker 1 (53:34):
Right.
Yeah, it's really funny because, as I you know, I have a real
estate coach and, as I presentedthis to him in the beginning,
he's like, yeah, you guys aretotally screwed.
He's like there's a lot oftimes the panels will get it
wrong.
Speaker 2 (53:47):
Yeah, cause he thought we should win but said
the panel is going to no hethought we were going to lose to
begin with.
Speaker 1 (53:52):
And then, as I told him more of the details, he's
like, well, you might have anopportunity.
Oh, yeah, no.
And then ultimately he came inour favor.
He's like, oh no, yeah, youshould win.
And so it was kind of again asyou, as you first think about
the whole situation, we shouldhave totally lost that thing.
But we realized there was ahole and we went after the hole
(54:17):
and ultimately we crushed them.
Coming out of it it was like Iknew it.
I knew it coming out of thatarbitration, that we were going
to win.
Speaker 2 (54:28):
Well, we knew if we lost we were going to appeal
because we knew we were right.
No-transcript.
Yeah, it was not going tohappen.
Speaker 1 (54:32):
We weren't going to allow it to have the board be
wrong.
Speaker 2 (54:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (54:35):
We were totally going to appeal and anyways, justice
was served on the realtor side.
That was fun, and what's reallyfunny is that dude, I couldn't
get over this my happiness metermeter was just like through the
roof I was just like so excitedfor days.
We ended up making?
We ended up making a uh an aimeme.
That was the three of us, ascalled us the arbitrators.
Speaker 2 (54:56):
Yeah if you follow jason, you probably saw it and
you're probably like what is hetalking about?
I did a I'll just add to thatcontext.
He posted that as he was likethree quarters of the way deep
in a bottle of wine.
Speaker 1 (55:05):
Yeah, I mean just so high on life yeah, it was, yeah,
it was a good victory to drinkfor.
And then, oh, I did the Trumpdance too.
Speaker 2 (55:13):
Oh yeah, yeah, you did the Trump dance, came up
with a meme, told the wholeworld that we won
Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.
This was a long time coming,you know.
As we said, we got the initialdocumentation in May.
Yeah, so it was certainly acareer highlight, and it was
November that it closed.
Speaker 1 (55:32):
I'm so glad we just didn't lay down and we went
after it.
So, Rach, thanks for your work.
Speaker 2 (55:38):
Nice job.
Thanks for letting me tackle itwith you.
Speaker 1 (55:41):
Yeah, it was fun, all right, if you found any value
in the show.
If you're a real estate agentor if you are a managing broker,
share this episode with afellow agent who might be going
through some type of troublewith their commissions.
Hopefully, this gives youconfidence to fight if somebody
tries to claim they are due thecommission that you earned.
(56:01):
And yeah, share the show,appreciate it.
You can also find us on YouTube.
Like and subscribe and we'llcatch you on the next episode.
All right, welcome back to another episode of the
Real Life Investing Podcast withJason and Rachel Wagner.
We're going to go over a coolone today, because we're
actually kind of stillcelebrating this victory.
This is like a real, this is areal victory.
What was the victory, rach?
Speaker 2 (00:18):
We won the arbitration.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Yeah, so we won a arbitration case.
Yeah, so we won a arbitrationcase.
And in realtor world, anarbitration case is when you
have another agent that isactually putting in a claim of
the commission that you haveearned, saying that no, I
(00:41):
actually earned that commission.
You did not, I was theprocuring cause on this sale,
you were just another agent thatwas able to claim it, all right
.
So this type of stuff in thestate of Illinois it's actually
(01:12):
is what determines who earns thecommission on the buy side
transaction.
So, for example, a lot of timeswhen you show a property to a
client, the client likes theproperty and decides that they
want to move forward with anoffer.
Now, typically what happenshere is that because of that
(01:36):
showing the showing is whatcaused the buyer to like the
property, to then lead to anaction of putting in an offer
lead to an action of putting inan offer and it was whoever the
agent showed the property is theone that really is entitled to.
That commission, because it allstarted with the first showing
of that property, is what startsprocuring cause.
(01:56):
And so typically, as you'reworking with a real estate agent
, you go and tour a propertywith that agent, that agent goes
ahead and writes the offer foryou and you close the
transaction.
Everyone gets paid, seller getspaid, attorneys get paid and
that real estate broker thathelped you with that transaction
is going to get paid as well.
But let's just say you have aninstance where you have another
(02:17):
agent that showed the propertybut you another agent wrote the
offer, what happens here.
So this is an example of likeour actual case that occurred
and so we're going to go overthe details of what this case
was and it took.
(02:37):
I mean, we first got notice ofthis we closed on the property
back in february and we gotnotice of the, the arbitration
request in may and just twoweeks ago, two or three weeks
ago, we finally settled thatarbitration case for this
(03:01):
commission we won.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
we didn't didn't settle it, we won.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
We finally won.
That's right.
That's going back to thevictory stuff.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
There were attempts to settle, but we did not settle
.
We won.
Yeah, so are we going to?
So we had previously recordedwhat happened after the
mediation.
Are we going to publish thatand then tag this on to the
second half?
So there's that history.
Are we just going to kind?
Speaker 1 (03:21):
of start fresh here.
We might have to listen to that, but no, I think we should just
go over everything here.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Okay, so the whole thing, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Here's how to win an arbitration case.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Well, I don't know if I want to issue that
endorsement out there.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Well, here's how we won an arbitration case.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
All right, well, because you're kind of like the
legal expert, even though youare not an attorney, but you
just have like this legalesethat's like built up in your
stomach and just spews out.
It's pretty, it's prettyfabulous to uh to have in in a
situation like this.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Yeah, I did take a lot of pride when the mediator
asked me if I was an attorney.
I was just beaming.
I'm like no, I'm not, but Iwish I was.
If I could do it all over again, I probably would.
But as you've said many times,I'd be a very angry person if I
was an attorney.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Yeah, and so what's actually funny is that so you
can get an attorney to helprepresent you on these
arbitration cases, but thereality is is that the
commission wasn't enough to havean attorney included on this,
so we had to represent ourselves.
Because here's the thing, it'slike the commissioning question.
It was like $10,000.
(04:28):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Which is significant, for sure, yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
But that is not enough.
To pay an attorney to representyou on a case, right?
It's basically I don't knowwhat an attorney fee might be.
It might be the wholecommission, it might be more
than that, right?
So it literally makes nofinancial sense.
We are the ones that arecurrently holding the commission
(04:52):
, and then for us to say, well,we're going to hire an attorney
who might charge us that sameamount or more like it,
literally doesn't make any sense, so it leaves us with
representing ourselves in thiswhole process.
And now this arbitration processis a full-blown trial, Like it
is.
You're in front of the realtorboard.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Right, which is essentially the jury, which is a
jury.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
It's a panel of five people plus an alternate in case
somebody gets sick or somethingduring the middle of it.
And then you have openingstatements, you present your
evidence, you havecross-examination.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Or witnesses.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
No Cross-examination.
First you present the evidenceand then you can cross-examine
the evidence and ask questions,and then you have witness and
then you can cross-examine thewitness and then you have
closing statements.
Okay, this is a full-blowntrial.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
With no judge but.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Right.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
But the decision at the end of this arbitration is
all or nothing.
So this $10,000 is either goingto be retained by us or we're
going to have to pay it to thisother person that is claiming
that they are due the commissionRight.
So it's a big bet.
This is a big bet.
(06:15):
There's a lot of money on theline.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Yeah, for us, not the other side.
So that's what was prettyinteresting about this whole
thing too, is because ourbrokerage was the closing
brokerage for the deal.
We retained the commission andpaid it out the what would you
call them a claimant.
The claimant, you know, hadonly what?
250 dollars filed to claim orto submit this complaint, and
(06:41):
that's all the skin they had inthe game that's all the skin
that they had in the game.
Yeah, it's 250 bucks so theyjust come out and make this.
You can make wild, very limitedevidence.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
I feel you can make wild claims that you are the
ones that deserve the commission.
You can tie up somebody's timebecause, like if we were to
calculate the amount of timethat we put into preparation for
this, because, again, it's likegetting us all up to speed on
what is our case, finding outall the details, talking to a
(07:14):
witness, getting all the detailsfrom there and then being
prepared multiple times, well,and we had to submit it all in
writing.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
So you had to submit your write-up, submit all your
evidence, your exhibits, far inadvance, far in advance, yeah,
yeah.
So let's, let's go through thetimeline so you mentioned, you
know, property closed, or how doyou want to go through like
what actually happened with theclients and the broker.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Yeah, yeah so.
So essentially what happened isthat we had a repeat client
that was working with one of ouragents, and when I say repeat
client, there was also like evena close relationship, relative
tie to that client and the agent.
(07:57):
So this would have been theirthird transaction together and
so they Second and third becausethey had sold.
Yeah, second and second andthird transaction because they
were looking for their upgradehouse.
Our agent helped them buy theircurrent house.
They were looking for theirupgrade house and then our agent
helped them sell their theirhouse again.
(08:18):
Right, so, as they're lookingfor the upgrade house, they have
already establishedcommunications with our agent.
And, you know, when they saweach other at family events kind
of leading up to it, they'relike, hey, we're thinking about,
you know, next year is going tobe our time, and so, anyways,
they were kind of likepreliminaries to discussions
that already occurred.
And then, actually the morningof when the showing occurred,
(08:42):
they reached out to our agentand said, hey, we're ready to
like start looking at houses.
Like we're getting reallyserious.
You know, is there a time thatwe could sit down next week and
talk through some things?
And our agent response says, oh, that's awesome.
Yeah, great to hear.
We'd love to help you.
I'm actually out of town rightnow.
I'll be back next week onMonday, but happy to do that.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Yeah, so this was a Friday morning.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
This was a Friday morning.
He's just out of town for theweekend.
Yeah, so he's out of town forthe weekend.
And so the buyers, they goahead knowing that our agent is
out of town.
They really don't say anythingelse after that, but they just
know in their heads hey, youknow, let's, let's take a look
at, you know, Zillow.
And they found a house thatthey like, and so they clicked a
button on Zillow that said tourthis house.
(09:28):
And so what happens?
When you click that button onZillow, you are agreeing that
somebody's going to reach out toyou and try to set up a time to
go see the property.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Somebody, as in a potential buyer's agent.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
It is somebody who is trying to win your business.
You have no idea who thatperson is that's reaching out to
you, but it's a licensed agentwho is not listing the property
in question.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
They are just an agent looking to hopefully earn
your business.
Yes, so I think there's amisconception for many people
when they use Zillow and Redfinthat when you click book a tour
request that you're goingdirectly to the listing agent
and you're not, you're justgetting paired with some random
person out there who's payingZillow or Redfin or whoever to
get potential leads, so you getconnected with somebody who's
(10:14):
hoping to be your agent.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Yeah, yeah, and you know that that agent that you
ultimately end up meeting atthat property.
Some people don't even know whothat person is Like, they're
just.
They just know that, oh okay,you're the one that I was
talking to on the phone andsetting up the appointment.
There's been many cases whereI've heard where people have met
somebody and they're like youknow, so, you know, tell me
(10:37):
about the sellers, right?
Speaker 2 (10:38):
And then that agent has no idea about the sellers
because they're not the listingagent right, because there's
this misconception that you'rebooking the tour just with the
direct person listing it andit's the exact opposite.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Yep, Yep, Exactly.
And so when you are the agentin that situation.
So I've done this, I've done,I've done Zillow, and it's a
great way to meet potentialpeople and also just have an
opportunity where you couldmaybe help them with this
(11:08):
purchase.
More than likely, the person isnot going to buy this house,
the one that you're showing themfrom Zillow.
But I'm usually asking hey, areyou already working with an
agent or are you pre-approved,Like I'm just trying to like on
those tours?
You're just trying to find outsome information about them to
see if you could take it alittle bit further.
More than likely, what you endup doing is that you'll end up,
(11:29):
if they're not represented andyou have a good rapport with
them, you can find them anotherhouse.
But this first meeting isreally kind of like getting to
know them and like figuring outtheir situation.
You also know at the same timethat there's a potential chance
that that person walking in thedoor is already working with an
agent, that there's a potentialchance that that person walking
in the door is already workingwith an agent.
You are kind of rolling thedice on hey, this may not be
worth my time, but maybe it'ssomething.
(11:50):
I can develop a relationshipwith, or maybe the agent that
they're working with theyhaven't talked to in years, but
they'll say that they're workingwith somebody.
But you might develop a betterrelationship with them in which
there's a chance that you couldearn their business, and so this
is kind of like me puttingmyself in the claimant's shoes.
(12:11):
Here is that that is kind ofhow he treated the situation.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Yeah, so clients hit book tour requests.
They get a tour for later thatafternoon.
They get the call from thisother agent.
We'll refer to them as theZillow agent.
That's the easiest way and theybook the time and they go and
view the house, spend about 15,20 minutes walking through with
this agent.
The Zillow agent gives themlike a marketing binder that had
(12:39):
some things in there about hisbrokerage and himself, and then
they part ways.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Yeah, in that marketing binder they also had
like hey he.
He gave a preliminary estimateof what the house was.
He thought it was overpriced.
Yeah, that's true, so inconversation, those were good
details to include here, becauseso, basically, that agent had
tried to show that they had donesome homework on the on the
property and said you know, wethink the house is overpriced
and, you know, actually gavethem an opinion on that.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Yeah, and by opinion.
It was a couple printouts oflistings with some red marker
notes on there.
It wasn't anything formal orthat was drawn up in like an
actual analysis report and itwas very informal.
Just a couple scribbles, yep,and then the Zillow agent was
able to obtain the client'scontact information and took
(13:30):
that as I'm going to sign you upfor emails.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Yep Emails from MLS to get other searches, yep.
So he probably asked them onthe showing, you know, oh, do
you have a current house?
And because he was able toobtain that address, and he set
them up with the automated MLSsearch, and so, anyways, they do
part ways after that and he setthem up with the automated MLS
search and so, anyways, they dopart ways after that and those
(13:55):
buyers end up calling our agentand saying, hey, I know this is
out of the blue, but we justwent and saw a house, we really
kind of like it and we'd like toget your opinion on it,
considering maybe putting in anoffer.
And our agent responds with, oh, wow, okay, sounds great.
I mean, you guys are reallymoving and shaking.
(14:17):
Let me give you a call here ina little bit.
And so they discussed theproperty.
Our agent also asked hey, yousaw the house.
He was actually wondering howthey saw the house, and so they
told him that you know that theybooked it through Zillow.
And you know his first questionwas hey, did you sign anything
with this other agent?
(14:38):
And they said, oh, no, no, youknow we had full intention, like
we were just going to see itand you know you were going to
be our agent.
And he says okay, and so theyproceed to move forward on kind
of next steps and really thisthey had just started their
search and they weren't evenpre-approved yet, right?
So they, they had a house tosell.
They weren't really sure ifthey could buy the next house
(14:59):
without selling that, and sothey you know our agent ended up
introducing them to a lenderjust to get them pre-approved
and kind of figure out theirtheir situation.
So that was that night.
This is still like Friday night, the day of the showing.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Yeah, and our agent also made contact with the
co-listing agent that firstnight just to see what was going
on with the property and theco-listing agent said well, I'll
definitely let you know, youknow, if we end up asking for
highest and best.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Yep, but they at the time they didn't have any offers
.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
They did not.
At the time they didn't haveany offers on the property, so
he just called the check status.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Yep, so that's an important piece there.
And so a couple of days go by.
Now we get to Sunday and thebuyers now have a pre-approval.
The buyers have sat on it.
The buyers had talked to ouragent and said we'd like to go
see it with you when you comeback.
And our agent is coming back onMonday, and they were going to
(15:59):
originally do that.
However, our agent wanted tocheck in again and just figure
out, because he had that firstinitial phone call.
He had found out that, oh,actually, the seller has
received another offer and nowthey're requesting highest and
best by Sunday, and our agentrelays that information to the
(16:21):
buyer, letting them know hey,actually, you know, we can't
wait until Monday.
They're asking for highest andbest because now they have
multiple offers and if youreally like this house, like we
need to, we need to submit.
And so that caused our buyersto then all of a sudden be
motivated to submit the offer.
(16:42):
Okay, they felt confident fromthat first showing, from what
they saw, to submit the offer.
And so we came up with apricing strategy and a way to
win, using escalation clausesand just more of a sophisticated
way to write the offer,ultimately, end up winning,
(17:02):
ultimately end up doing theinspection, moving forward
closing on the transaction.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Okay so and well, let's just also add in here.
So about eight days after thatinitial Zillow request they hear
back from the Zillow agent forthe first time and the Zillow
agent emails them a genericemail and just says hey, you
guys went radio silent on me.
(17:28):
Is there anything else I can behelping you with?
You got any questions?
Let me know.
Send a real generic email.
Two days later the clientsrespond to him and just say
sorry, we've put our search onhold and no longer need any help
.
And then they were unsubscribedfrom the searches, the MLS
search that they set up, andthat was all the communication.
(17:49):
That was it.
So in between that, eight days,no follow-up phone call, no
text messages, no email specificto that property, no
communication.
Just eight days until thatgeneric email.
And then that was it.
That was all the communicationthey had with that agent.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Yeah.
And so as we get into threemonths post closing, I receive
an email from the competingbrokerage here, from that Zillow
agent, saying we saw that thisproperty closed with one of your
agents.
We were actually the one thatshowed the property first and
we're filing a procuring causeclaim on it.
(18:27):
And so when you file aprocuring cause claim, you have
to submit your evidence.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
And so that evidence didn't they ask you like a
question, Like do you haveanything to yeah, yeah At first
at first.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
they reached out to me and I and I responded back
with him and just said I don'tagree with the claim.
This is a repeat client andthat was it.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
So you said, and their family, I think.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Yes, repeat client and their family of our, of our
agent, and so super shortresponse.
Okay, well, that led into themproviding all of the evidence
that they had.
Well, actually submitting theand submitting the submitting
the arbitration request, and soyou don't have to directly go to
(19:11):
arbitration, where you're infront of a panel.
You have an opportunity whereyou can go to mediation.
Mediation is where it's reallymore of an informal practice,
but it's led by a mediator whoyou have an opportunity to kind
of present both sides of thecase and both sides will be
there discuss.
So we went, the other partieswere there as well, and during
(19:41):
that mediation we actually kindof learned a lot.
We learned about it from ourperspective is that the mediator
defined what procuring cause is, and why don't you just read
over that definition real quick?
Speaker 2 (19:56):
well, he actually didn't define what procuring
causes.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
He asked us to define it but he asked us to define it
.
But he ended up going into theprocuring cause definition.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Yeah.
So it says a broker will beregarded as the procuring cause
of a sale, so as to be entitledto the commission, if his
efforts are the foundation onwhich the negotiations resulting
in a sale are begun, a causeoriginating a series of events
which, without break in theircontinuity, results in the
(20:26):
accomplishment of the primeobjective of the employment of
the broker, who is producing apurchaser who's ready, willing
and able to buy real estate onthe owner's terms.
So some key things I'll justpoint out in there is that the
efforts have to be thefoundation on which the
transaction started.
So what actually caused theseries of events to begin?
(20:49):
And there was no break in thecontinuity of the series events.
So that is very critical.
We'll get to that.
And then also the broker has tobe producing a purchaser who's
ready, willing and able to buyreal estate on the client's own
terms.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
So all of those things are key things we'll get
into here in a minute yeah, Ithink you know from the other
perspective you may be hearingthis and you're like Jason.
I have no idea how you won this.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Right, because, well, we were certainly concerned at
the beginning too, because we'relike, well, technically, the
Zillow agent showed the propertyand the showing of the property
is what led them to submit anoffer.
And, of course, the claimant'sargument was we did the work, we
showed a comparative marketanalysis and we showed the
property and your agent justwrote up the offer.
(21:36):
And from the surface and fromhigh level and from afar, that's
definitely what it looks like.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
When we first got that we were shaken in our boots
.
We thought we were totally done.
We thought that we were goingto lose this in our boots.
We thought we were totally done.
We thought that we were goingto lose this.
Although, as you start, what welearned during that mediation
was that there were holes, andthis is when the expertise of Ms
Rachel over here was able toreally kind of pinpoint some
(22:06):
things that look, when you startsaying what started the series
of events without interruption,it could be the showing yeah,
and I think that's what in mosttransactions, you're going to
argue what started the series ofevents of a transaction showing
the property showing theproperty yeah, when I saw the
property then I decided I wantedto move on it right super
(22:27):
simple, high level right.
Well, you could say well, peoplemake, you know it't necessarily
.
That couldn't necessarilyhappen, because sometimes people
make blind offers on properties, right.
So part of me was like well,I'm taking that angle was that
(22:54):
there was no follow-up from thatZillow agent after he showed
the property for eight days?
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Right, which created a break.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Which created a break which created an opportunity
for our agent to do actions tocreate a new chain of events.
And really what we provedduring this arbitration case was
that the chain of events didnot start with the showing.
The chain of events startedonce our agent found out there
(23:26):
were multiple offers on theproperty, which then caused our
buyers to be motivated to submitthe offer.
Without that notification ofmultiple offers, they would have
went and saw the property onthat Monday with our agent and
then there would have been noprocuring cause claim at all.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
He would have already lost it right.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
Yeah, he would have totally lost it right, Because
then they showed the propertyagain then, which led to the
offer and eventually closing thetransaction.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
And some things that helped us prove that were there
were still text messagecommunications that our broker
still had record of.
That clearly showed that, okay,we're gonna sit on it for the
weekend, we'll connect with youon Monday.
So there was clearcommunication that showed we
weren't ready to submit an offerFriday night.
We also weren't ready to submitan offer Saturday.
(24:17):
We weren't even pre-approved.
It was not until the brokermade that phone call to the
listing agent and then back tothe client and said, hey, you
guys are going to have to make adecision or you're going to
lose it, right.
And so having that writtendocumentation of text messages
um was key because otherwise itwould have been hearsay really,
(24:40):
which maybe still would have won.
But I think it would have beenharder for people to believe
that, especially knowing, likethe relationship and stuff.
I think yeah, yeah, so like holdup before you go any further, I
wanted to go into um,relationship and stuff.
I think yeah, yeah.
So, like I also hold up, beforeyou go any further, I wanted to
go into um.
So, as you go through the quoteof ethics and arbitration
manual, there's it's like whatis this?
Like 10 pages, it goes intowhat defines a break in the
(25:02):
series of events, and so this iswhat the argument really came
down to is whether or not therewas abandonment from the agent.
So in this case, the Zillowagent.
Did the Zillow agent abandonthe client?
And so, because he waited eightdays to reach out and his
reaching out didn't even consistof a follow-up of that specific
property, we were able to provethat he, or argue that he
(25:26):
abandoned the client.
He didn't make any effort andwe argued you know, in a spring
market in February, what are youdoing?
Waiting eight days to follow upwith somebody who went to see a
property on a Friday?
We were also able to prove that,like he didn't even contact the
listing agent to find outinformation about that property,
to know that there weremultiple offers.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
And I want to add to this too, because the mediation
is really where we learned a lotabout these guys and the way
the confidence that was shownduring that mediation proved
that this was more of a schemeand this wasn't necessarily them
(26:06):
trying to do good faith efforthere, and this was, this was a
total scheme.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
No, because had he actually reached out to the
clients, we probably would havelost.
Right, Honestly had he justmade a phone call or a text
message, it would have been alot harder for us to win, and
how do I know it was a scheme.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
Okay, so here's what he stated during the mediation.
Is that, well, the clientshowed that they had extreme
interest in the property and wekind of immediately questioned
and said, well, if they hadextreme interest, why didn't you
reach out to them?
Speaker 2 (26:40):
I asked that question right away and he's like well,
I probably did.
I got to sit here and search inmy text messages.
And then he starts scrollinghis phone for five minutes.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
He thinks that he reached out to the client again
after the showing.
In reality, all he did was setup an MLS search.
He didn't ask them anythingabout that current property that
they just saw.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
He didn't ask them if they wanted to see other
properties.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
No, he just sent them MLS searches.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Here's more properties for you to look at
Automated MLS searches.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
Automated which is different, not hand-selected
Automated and then sent afollow-up email eight days later
saying hey, you guys went radiosilent on me.
Any questions for me in thearbitration is that well, I'll
(27:31):
cross-reference after publicrecord showing who now owns
those properties.
Compare that to who I've shownthe properties and then file a
procuring cause, claim and youknow what the amount of
confidence.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
I can't say this for a fact, but my hunch is the
amount of confidence that theseguys showed during the first
mediation was that they had beenin this situation before and
they had won and he's a realestate agent, and then the two
(28:10):
agents on the opposing side, youand our agent, and then me and
I actually did the presenting,which was probably really good
because both both Jason and thisother guy were definitely
heated.
Even the mediator at one pointsaid, wow, both sides are quite
confident.
It was kind of funny.
But seriously, within like twominutes this guy, like his
(28:30):
physical body language, was justthrowing arms up in the air and
making you know obnoxiousgestures and just trying to find
like the right word to describeI would say arrogant.
I wouldn't have said confidence.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
I would have said arrogance.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
He was very aggressive to the point where,
seriously, within two minutes ofme talking, showing our case
and then asking him a follow-upquestion, the mediator had to
tell him to calm down.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
Right, I mean, he was just so crazy.
That's the type of hothead wewere dealing with on the other
side.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
That's a great way to put it.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Yeah, he was very.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
He could not control his emotions around this.
And it's crazy because, again,it would have been a much
stronger argument had he triedto win that business but he
didn't.
So to have that level ofarrogance, knowing you never
even followed up with theseclients, they never followed up
with you and now you think youcan claim $10,000 of commission,
was just like.
What kind of person are you?
(29:24):
Yeah, it was just crazy.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
to me it was a scheme right, and so again, let's
describe what the scheme is here.
So the scheme is here.
So the scheme is is that I showthe property.
I'm a Zillow agent.
I get connected with buyers,you know, maybe five to six a
month or something like that.
It could be more Okay and so Iwill go and meet those buyers
and show the properties.
(29:47):
Okay, I'll do my best, you know,try to set a rapport, get them
on an MLS search.
Maybe they'll reach out again.
But I won't actually do anyfollow-up with them.
You know that's all myfollow-up because I know chances
are the people aren't going tobuy that house.
They're going to buy a house.
You know from me, you knowthat's down the road and so part
(30:10):
of my process is going to be.
Well, maybe once a year or twicea year I'm going to go back and
I'm going to check what are allthe houses that I showed
through Zillow, who were thoseclients and do they own any of
the houses that I showed, right?
And if they do, and how do Ifind out of the houses?
(30:31):
Because it's all public record,right?
And so the moment that youclose on a property now, three
months later, the county recordswho is the owner of that
property.
And if you don't have it in anllc, it's going to go in your
personal name and that personalname is going to be shown.
If you just do a little digging,go out to the county site, you
can see who owns that property.
(30:51):
You can also check in the MLSto see that, oh, it was done
through this agent.
And now, oh, I see that Johnand Susie bought that house over
there.
I was actually the one showingit, but Sally, the real estate
agent in that brokerage, they'rethe one that closed down in the
MLS.
So now I can tell my managingbroker over here hey, I was
(31:12):
actually the procuring cause andI could show them that I showed
that property, show them thework that I did.
And now my managing brokerthinks that I'm the one that did
all the work and he's going tofile the claim against that
other brokerage.
And that's exactly whathappened.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Yeah, so I wanted to go back.
We were going through thedefinitions of how you prove a
break in the chain of events.
So the first one was provingabandonment, which I think we've
already said several times.
He abandoned the clients by notfollowing up the listing agent,
not following up the clientspecifically on that property,
and he waited eight days for anycommunication at all.
The second piece isestrangement, and that would be
the opposite side, that theclients chose to estrange
(31:51):
themselves from the agent, andthen you have to say why, that
there had to have been a reason,something that the agent did
that they didn't like, and inour situation it was fit.
And the analysis of theproperty that the agent gave you
know he gave them an argument Ithink we said this in our first
write-up that he said oh, Iactually know the listing agent
(32:11):
here and they have a history oflisting the property low, so I
think you could get this for20,000 below listing price,
which is laughable.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
I have a history of listing at high.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Oh, that's yes.
That's what I meant to say,nice.
Okay, so he suggested to themthat they could get it 20,000
below.
And the clients are like, no,no way that that's accurate, you
know so they were very politewith this agent but that was
enough for us to show and we hadthat in the write up that he
gave for his comparative marketanalysis.
(32:42):
That showed that.
That was enough to show that.
You know that the clientsestranged from him.
So we had both abandonment andestrangement to show the break
in the chain of events.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
Yeah, Right.
So ultimately it comes down toyeah, the showing did a lot, but
was it the procuring cause ofthe sale?
And that's where it takes awell-crafted argument to prove
that procuring cause did notstart with the showing.
Prove that procuring cause didnot start with the showing.
(33:14):
It started with actions thatcame after that.
And the actions that came afterthat were from our broker, who
informed them through follow-upfrom across the country, through
a few phone calls.
Those actions were what causedthe sale and so notifying the
buyers.
Hey, there's multiple offers,we can't wait any longer.
(33:34):
As much as you want me to geteyes on this, I can't, but if
you want it, we have to submitan offer now.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Right, because, like you said early on in this
episode, had the agent not madethat phone call to the listing
agent you know they they were onvacation, so they certainly
didn't need to do any work.
But had they not made thatphone call, the agent, our agent
and the clients would havenever known that that property
was requesting highest and bestoffers and if they waited till
(34:02):
Monday they would have missedout.
And then I think at one pointwe even argued had they gone
with the Zillow agent, they alsowouldn't have known because he
didn't follow up.
And had they submitted an offerthat was arguably $20,000 below
listing price, they wouldn'thave been close in the
competitive range because theyhad multiple offers.
So all of these scenarios wouldhave resulted in no commission
(34:22):
in question.
So it really came down solely toour agent's actions and then
the client becoming ready,willing and able to buy real
estate.
So that was the other piece ofthis, and the definition is that
the client had to be ready,willing and able to buy real
estate on their terms and at thetime that they show saw the
property on Friday, they werenot pre-approved and they also
(34:44):
had not made a decision to wantto put in an offer.
It was not until Sunday thatthey were then pre-approved and
they had made the decision tomove forward on the property.
So all three of those things, Ithink, is what won this.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Yeah, totally.
What's really funny is so webrought in a witness in this
arbitration case and the witnesswas the buyer.
Before, before the buyer comesin, you know, the opposing party
says in his opening remarks hesays you know, you're going to
(35:21):
hear, as he's presenting to thepanel, you're going to hear the
other side parade their witnessin and their witness is going to
lie about all kinds of things.
And I just thought it was justso fascinating that you would
start with letting you know thatthis buyer is going to lie, in
which, just five minutes priorto that, we had all raised our
(35:45):
right hand and said we swear totell the truth, the whole truth
and nothing but the truth, whichis really funny.
But you know, we swear to tellthe truth, the whole truth and
nothing but the truth, which isreally funny.
It's so like it is a veryserious setting.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
And he opens his opening remarks with saying well
, the witness is going to lieand so, anyways, we had just
obnoxious, especially whenyou're trying to argue that you
earn the commission from thatperson's transaction.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Right, right.
Yeah, it's not a good approachto take if you're trying to win
over a panel, in my opinion,from that person's transaction.
Right, you've got some seriousballs, man.
Yeah, it's not a good approachto take if you're trying to win
over a panel, in my opinion,because you haven't really you
don't insult the client.
No, and you certainly didn'tprove that he lied about
anything, so that was anotherprice.
But so each side does have anopportunity to ask the witness
questions, and so we all knowthat the witness is coming in.
(36:32):
You have to give at least15-day notice that there's going
to be a witness there, and wegave plenty of notice.
Honestly, this arbitration wassupposed to be scheduled like a
month and a half in advance ofwhen it actually took place, but
it ended up getting canceled bythe other side because of
scheduling conflicts, in whichreally grinded our gears,
because it got canceled the weekof, so we were already
(36:55):
preparing to be ready to go, andthen it got canceled, and then
it got delayed for like anothermonth and a half.
So then we had to re-prepareagain.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Well, and what's so frustrating about this is like
so we had done the mediation andthen we're waiting for the
arbitration to get scheduled.
Well, when you do that, you haveto submit in writing your
entire write-up, all yourdocumented evidence and who
you're calling as your witness.
So you've got to put all ofthis effort and work up front.
So that's when you're mostprepared to go in and do this
argument right.
And then each side gets theopposing party's write-up.
(37:25):
So they then get our write-upand then they request this
extension.
So then they get even more time.
Like you said, it was like amonth and a half where they got
even more time with our writtenargument to review and prepare,
and then a month and a halflater, like we haven't been
sitting here every day reviewingthe details, preparing to go
into this and the whole, thewhole key to winning any
(37:46):
argument, I feel like in anytrial, is being prepared.
Like you need to know the casein and out.
You need to know every detail,because the second they say
something you need to be readyto clarify or question or prove
wrong.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
You're so right.
You're so right Because,actually, as I called our
attorney, Kathleen, and I toldher, I said you won't believe
this, but we won, we won baby.
And she's like oh my God, I'mso happy for you.
And she's like she's like, ohmy god, I'm so happy for you
she's like she was like she washonestly shocked.
She's like, honestly, I thoughtthat you guys were going to
split.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Well, that was her recommendation in the beginning
when we talked to her is justoffer something, and we did in
the mediation.
So that's what was interestingwhen we talked about the
confidence and the arrogance isinitially we offered like a
showing fee.
That was our kind of insulting,like yeah, we'll give you 250
bucks for showing the propertyor whatever, and that was a no
and then eventually we came backto 50 50 50 we were gonna.
(38:36):
We offered him 50 of thecommission.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
He still said no yeah , I, I that was.
I couldn't believe.
Like you're sitting there, youcan't find any communication
with the client that was theconfidence and the arrogance
from the other side and it justthat, that type of denial, they
said that they would settle at75.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
Yeah, they wanted 75% of the commission and they
couldn't find a singlecommunication with the client.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
That type of arrogance and confidence.
Just it really proved to methat they had been there before.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
Right yeah, and probably had won, and so that
was scary for us.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
It was totally scary.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
What are we missing?
Why are these guys thisconfident and they kept saying
this in the mediation is whatstarted the chain of events was
the showing.
The showing started the chainof events.
It doesn't matter that you werealready established with an
agent, it doesn't matter that hedid the work afterwards.
We started the chain of events.
So we won the commission andwe're sitting there just like
crap.
Yeah, because in reality.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
Like you know, we know the rules, but we don't
know them in that fine detail.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
Yeah, we were not.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
And so are we missing something?
And so sure again, like when wefirst started this episode, we
were saying like, in reality, Ithought we were totally toast, I
thought we were totally toast,I thought we did something wrong
, I thought we did it wrong.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
In which I'm not going to lie we, we certainly
had a fault here.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
Right, we did not reach out to the agent and say
hey, I know that you, you know,show the property, but I've
actually been working with theseguys and you know,
unfortunately, courtesy callagain yeah, and so, and so we,
we recognize that we had a faultthere, um, and we weren't
perfect, and so we recognizedthat we had a fault there and we
weren't perfect, and so, but atthe same time, you know, and
(40:16):
that was kind of our offeringduring the mediation hey, okay,
we recognize you did some work.
Here's a showing fee.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
Right, it was also kind of like a backhanded offer.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
Well, yeah, you know, 250 bucks I mean for an hour's
worth of work.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
It was like 15 minutes, Like it wasn't even an
hour.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
Well, a little preparation driving there.
Okay, you know $250, not bad,right Okay?
Speaker 2 (40:42):
Literally very fair.
You printed the slides from theMLS.
You didn't even do your ownanalysis.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
But sure yeah, sure Right, but sure I get yeah sure,
right even a 50, 50, fivethousand dollars is an insane
offer.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
Yeah, I was shocked.
It's an insane offer.
The broker was willing to offerthat.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
You and I were kind of like, okay, yes, well, let's
see, it's your money so so oncewe both parted, once we parted
ways from that mediation, we'relike we're gonna win this and
we're find a way to win, and wereally kind of figured it out.
I don't know what it was, butwe fit, I think, what we figured
out.
I read an article.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
Well, you read an article an article that went
into the abandonment and theestrangement.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
Okay and that and that's really good, and I think
we also, and then we also justremembered everything that we
learned from about these guysduring that mediation.
This guy did not have proof offollow-up and he didn't submit
it as part of his evidence.
He also didn't submit it aspart of his final evidence.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
Yeah, so we were waiting for that.
So what we had from the initialarbitration was their initial
write-up.
They have the burden of initialproof or whatever, but as we
were sitting there in themediation, he's scrolling
through his phone.
He's like, oh, I know, I've gotit, I know, I've got it in here
.
Like I know, I followed up withthem.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
And I think you asked again like did you find it?
Speaker 2 (41:57):
Yeah, I asked several times in there because I knew
if he had that we lost.
Yeah, and so we said that thewhole time scheduled we each had
to submit our packets orwhatever.
And I'm looking through theirsubmittal.
I'm like they changed nothing,not a single word on their
submittal.
They didn't.
I'm like they have nothing.
They have nothing else.
Like they should have madetheir write-up so much stronger
(42:19):
but they literally had nothingelse to add.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
yeah, they had nothing else.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
They had nothing and he finally admitted in the
actual arbitration.
When you questioned, you know,did you follow up with him?
So in the mediationiation he'slike, oh yeah, I did.
You know he's scrolling hisphone.
But then in the arbitration youasked and he's like no, well,
why not?
What did he say?
I didn't have time or something.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
He said he didn't have an opportunity.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
He didn't have an opportunity to yeah Within
Because they had alreadysubmitted of followup.
Yeah yeah, you didn't create anopportunity cause you didn't
(42:58):
follow up with the listing agentto find out the timeframe.
I mean just basic, basic agenttasks, right, like even before
you go to the show.
I want you to reach out to thelisting agency.
What's going on?
Speaker 1 (43:07):
Yeah, what I want to go back to was that when you
have this witness is so you havean opportunity to be prepared,
and what you said was it allcomes down to who is the most
prepared in these cases.
It's exactly what Kathleen saidWhenever she's one, she says it
all comes down to who is mostprepared in any type of any type
of trial case, not justarbitrations between realtor
(43:28):
commissions, but like she alsolitigatesates and we had 45
questions for our witness 45 theamount of questions that the
other side presented was justfive yeah, and we had questions
prepared for for the zillowagent as well, which we weren't
even totally sure you were goingto be able to question him, but
(43:49):
we had them prepared anyway,just in case.
Right, yeah.
Yeah, we weren't totally clearon what the whole process was.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
Yeah, it was like walking in blind.
Speaker 1 (43:57):
But at the same time.
That's just our overpreparation here was that we
were prepared for a number ofdifferent scenarios If we had a
chance to actually question theother side.
We had a list of like 20questions that were available.
I didn't give them all 20, butI, yeah, I gave them a number of
(44:18):
them and and, honestly, as I Ikind of went off, I went off
script too because I was sosharp, right?
Speaker 2 (44:22):
that's why you have to be prepared, so you can go
off script.
Speaker 1 (44:24):
Yeah, I was so sharp in the details because you're
going to get all of thesequestions from the panel and if
you can't give a response thatis very coherent, confident, and
ties to your argument.
Yeah, and be quick with it,Right?
It doesn't help your argument.
(44:45):
And so you just have to knowthe facts.
And we were just way moreprepared.
And so what do we say?
Like going into it and thencoming out of it.
God, we're going to crush theseguys.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
Like we actually wanted to crush them.
Speaker 2 (45:01):
Well, after, after the behavior at the mediation,
like I had told you after this,I said you know, had he not
behaved the way he did at themediation, I didn't know that my
drive would have been as strongto come out and literally say I
wanted to crush him.
But because of how he acted andhow he treated me, I was just
like this guy cannot win, thisguy doesn't deserve to win.
He didn't even do the work, youknow.
(45:22):
And then to be that arrogantand disrespectful in that
setting, I was like you're goingto lose.
We are literally going to showyou and you're going to lose.
Speaker 1 (45:36):
Yeah, yeah, so we had our prepared remarks.
It took me about 10 minutes topresent my first initial
evidence, and then I had about afive minute closer too, and
really one of the closers was,you know, just kind of outlying
the scheme.
Speaker 2 (45:47):
Yeah, it went into ethics which.
I don't know if that helped ordidn't, but it was kind of like
a okay panel.
You're all real estate agentsyourself, and is this the type
of scheme you want going Like?
Is this really the intent ofprocuring cause?
Speaker 1 (46:00):
Right?
Is it Right?
No, is it the intent of havingZillow agents not follow up with
anybody, not show really anyfiduciary duty, just be there to
open a door, not?
Speaker 2 (46:10):
show really any fiduciary duty, just be there to
open a door.
Well, we even went as far as togo into.
You know what is disclosed tothe client when they click book
a tour on Zillow, because itclearly says that they're under
no obligation to work with theagent that they get paired with
and then also showing the termsand conditions of being a Zillow
agent.
It clearly says you do not havean exclusive right to this
agent or to this client.
Clearly says you do not have anexclusive right to this agent
or to this client and in orderto represent them, you have to
(46:34):
get written.
What's it called?
Exclusive, whatever?
exclusive agreement or whatever,but basically have an agreement
with them that says you'rerepresenting them, so like this
guy agrees to this as being partof a Zillow agent, and then
it's like ask you what I'm goingto go after this commission
even though I didn't do anythingExcept show the property.
Speaker 1 (46:56):
He showed the property, yeah.
And so we questioned them atthe end and just said you know,
we don't agree that a favorableruling in their favor is the
idea behind procuring cause,because it's totally replicable.
Speaker 2 (47:10):
Right.
And then you went as far to sayand if it is, I've got a bunch
of procuring cause claims myself.
Speaker 1 (47:16):
Totally, totally, because I could set up the exact
same thing and I could say well, I'm going to go back of all
those Zillow tours that I showedand I'm going to
cross-reference with now whoowns a property.
Speaker 2 (47:25):
And some of them did happen, because you did get
phone calls a couple of timesfrom agents who's like hey, like
we said hey, you showed aproperty to my clients, just
reaching out to let you knowthey're my clients, yeah, right.
Speaker 1 (47:36):
And you're like, all right, yeah, whatever, and you
walk away and that's happened,that has totally happened, and
you know it is what it is andI've never filed any type of
procuring cause, no, but again,if we would have lost this, it
would have set up an opportunity.
Well, now I could totallyexploit procuring cause because
we just lost that, so now Icould go do it to somebody else.
(47:57):
Right, it just sets up aterrible precedent.
Speaker 2 (48:00):
Well, and I think so.
One thing we were concernedabout is some of the panel
members and being agents beforeservices like Zillow and Redfin
existed.
Right before services likeZillow and Redfin existed, right
Like historically, it was kindof the showing that was the
basis for procuring cause,because historically clients
couldn't just go out there andbook tours.
They had to go to a brokerage'swebsite and get truly connected
(48:24):
with an.
They either had to have anagent themselves or they had to
reach out to the listingbrokerage website and get a tour
.
These services that allowclients to just see a property
on the same day didn't existbefore and so there was a little
bit of concern about anybody onthe panel who may not be able
to get past the mindset of theshowing is procuring cause.
The showing is procuring cause.
(48:44):
Whoever presented the propertyto the client wins, but you have
to go and look Well.
The Zillow agent didn't presentthe property.
The client wins, but you haveto go and look Well.
The Zillow agent didn't presentthe property.
The client presented theproperty right Like.
The Zillow agent didn't doanything to find that property,
to present it to the client.
The client actually did itthemselves and they did it under
the notion that they were justbooking a tour.
(49:05):
They weren't looking to find anagent.
Speaker 1 (49:14):
So the Zillow and the Redfin have kind of created a
little bit of a I don't knowwhat the word is, but they've
changed how you can't say Redfinbecause they have a different
model.
So Redfin does it totallydifferent.
You would get connected to anactual Redfin agent, I believe.
Speaker 2 (49:22):
Yeah but that's the same thing.
Speaker 1 (49:25):
No, no, no, no, no.
Redfin actually has agents.
Redfin is a brokerage.
Zillow is not a brokerage.
Speaker 2 (49:31):
Oh, I see, because Redfin is a brokerage that makes
the difference.
But even still they're gettingconnected with somebody who
wants to represent the client asan agent.
Speaker 1 (49:39):
No, Redfin actually has their own agents.
Speaker 2 (49:42):
Yes, and those agents want to represent the client.
Speaker 1 (49:46):
Well, yes, All right, sorry.
Yes, you're right.
Yeah, they want to representthe client Ultimately at the end
of the day, like you know, thequestion that should have been
asked is are you working withanother agent right now, Because
our buyers probably would havesaid, yes, we are.
Speaker 2 (50:04):
Yes, yeah.
Speaker 1 (50:06):
And we've been working with him on our last
transaction and we intend towork with him on, you know,
moving forward.
Speaker 2 (50:12):
And, in fairness, the clients couldn't remember if
that question was asked.
But as we talked with them, mytake on that was you would have
remembered Because it was neverasked.
You would have rememberedbecause it would have made you
uncomfortable.
Speaker 1 (50:24):
We asked the other side if they had asked the
buyers are you working withanother agent?
He said no.
Speaker 2 (50:30):
He said no, he didn't ask that question because in
the mediation he didn't rememberright, yeah, well, he didn't
ask that question yeah, soanyways, and so yeah yeah,
ultimately that was a big, thatwas a big victory it was worth
the work
Speaker 1 (50:45):
yeah, yeah, I really kind of look at this as like boy
.
That was like, yeah, like, whenyou do business, when you do a
lot of transactions, the realityis that you're going to open
yourself up to potentiallawsuits, and that's just what
business is.
Is that there is a like you'realways going to have something
(51:05):
that you know may not go perfect.
You know you put in your bestpractices to make sure that you
you mitigate that risk, and youknow we've we've certainly put
in more.
You know additional practicesin which we, we knew, like when
I first heard about this like ah, shoot, we should have, we
should have followed up, and ouragent knows that.
(51:27):
But at the same, at the sametime, you have to be ready to
fight and we totally could havejust laid down here and we
almost did.
We offered 50%.
But the fact is is that you canwin these things if you just
get the details.
Just get the details and youreally learn.
(51:49):
What is the ruling, what arethe outlines here that they have
for you, what's the evidence?
And when we put it all together, we had a way, stronger
argument going into arbitrationthan we did mediation and from
that perspective, that was justinsanely refreshing.
(52:10):
It's one of my in my opinion,one of our best career things to
hang our hats on, because,again, we're not lawyers,
realtors.
I'm a realtor.
Speaker 2 (52:20):
If I could offer any advice to anybody who has a
procuring cause claim, it wouldbe read the procuring cause
section of the code of ethicsand arbitration manual and all
of the questions on thearbitration worksheet.
That was really helpful becausein theory, the panel is sitting
there with the worksheetanswering those questions yes or
no and that gives you an ideaof where your evidence falls as
(52:41):
far as which way things aregoing to tilt, and it helps you
formulate your argument.
So then the questions areanswered in your favor.
Speaker 1 (52:49):
Yeah, yeah and just be favor.
Speaker 2 (52:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (52:51):
Yeah, and just be prepared.
Know the facts, know all thefacts and ask a ton of questions
.
Speaker 2 (52:57):
Ask a ton of questions and make sure to like,
when you're responding toquestions or your witnesses are
responding to questions, they'reactually responding to the
question asked and not like thebigger picture, Like because
when they are making theargument of you know well, the
showing is what started thechain of events and blah, blah,
blah, blah, and it's like, well,hold on, let's dive a little
bit deeper.
When did your desire topurchase the property exist?
(53:21):
It wasn't after the showing, itwas after you heard that it was
competitive and you had to makea decision, Right.
So, like it's just like reallydiving into those, those details
and listening exactly to thequestion, Right.
Speaker 1 (53:34):
Right.
Yeah, it's really funny because, as I you know, I have a real
estate coach and, as I presentedthis to him in the beginning,
he's like, yeah, you guys aretotally screwed.
He's like there's a lot oftimes the panels will get it
wrong.
Speaker 2 (53:47):
Yeah, cause he thought we should win but said
the panel is going to no hethought we were going to lose to
begin with.
Speaker 1 (53:52):
And then, as I told him more of the details, he's
like, well, you might have anopportunity.
Oh, yeah, no.
And then ultimately he came inour favor.
He's like, oh no, yeah, youshould win.
And so it was kind of again asyou, as you first think about
the whole situation, we shouldhave totally lost that thing.
But we realized there was ahole and we went after the hole
(54:17):
and ultimately we crushed them.
Coming out of it it was like Iknew it.
I knew it coming out of thatarbitration, that we were going
to win.
Speaker 2 (54:28):
Well, we knew if we lost we were going to appeal
because we knew we were right.
No-transcript.
Yeah, it was not going tohappen.
Speaker 1 (54:32):
We weren't going to allow it to have the board be
wrong.
Speaker 2 (54:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (54:35):
We were totally going to appeal and anyways, justice
was served on the realtor side.
That was fun, and what's reallyfunny is that dude, I couldn't
get over this my happiness metermeter was just like through the
roof I was just like so excitedfor days.
We ended up making?
We ended up making a uh an aimeme.
That was the three of us, ascalled us the arbitrators.
Speaker 2 (54:56):
Yeah if you follow jason, you probably saw it and
you're probably like what is hetalking about?
I did a I'll just add to thatcontext.
He posted that as he was likethree quarters of the way deep
in a bottle of wine.
Speaker 1 (55:05):
Yeah, I mean just so high on life yeah, it was, yeah,
it was a good victory to drinkfor.
And then, oh, I did the Trumpdance too.
Speaker 2 (55:13):
Oh yeah, yeah, you did the Trump dance, came up
with a meme, told the wholeworld that we won
Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.
This was a long time coming,you know.
As we said, we got the initialdocumentation in May.
Yeah, so it was certainly acareer highlight, and it was
November that it closed.
Speaker 1 (55:32):
I'm so glad we just didn't lay down and we went
after it.
So, Rach, thanks for your work.
Speaker 2 (55:38):
Nice job.
Thanks for letting me tackle itwith you.
Speaker 1 (55:41):
Yeah, it was fun, all right, if you found any value
in the show.
If you're a real estate agentor if you are a managing broker,
share this episode with afellow agent who might be going
through some type of troublewith their commissions.
Hopefully, this gives youconfidence to fight if somebody
tries to claim they are due thecommission that you earned.
(56:01):
And yeah, share the show,appreciate it.
You can also find us on YouTube.
Like and subscribe and we'llcatch you on the next episode.
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