Termination of Listing

[JJOlivier]

What is the name of your state? Tx

We have had our house listed with a broker for 3 mths now. We signed the Listing agreement and his terms were for 6 mths. In the 3 mths that he has had our listing he has shown it several times but has only brought one offer which was way under our asking price. At the same time we spoke to him regarding commissions and informed him that if for some reason he thought he was on our new home as our buying agent that was wrong. We were only agreeing to using him as our selling agent since our new house contract was already negociated and complete. Since then he has taken off for 3-4 weeks stopped open houses, three showings but no one came. Basically stopped trying to sell my home. We called to talk to him face to face but he refused to come and we had to email him and called him to ask him to terminate our listing. He said he can not allow us to do that . He says he is one of the hardest working realtors and no one would do as much as he has for us and he said he can take the house off of the market but will not allow us to terminate the listing. If in a few weeks or months we want to put it back on the market he still has the rights to list. Now I have been told by the TRC that I can file a complant with them but that will not get me out of the contract. I am trying to find out legally if I have any rights. I can not believe that I have to stick with a Broker that clearly does not have my best interests in mind and have to sit and wait until the contact expires on 12-31-06 at 11:59 pm to be rid of him. PLEASE can ANYONE help?What is the name of your state?

[Ellerge]

Call the Agents Broker and tell him/her what kind of service you are getting. Chances are, the Broker will assign someone else to the job! Alternatively, call another Agent and tell him/her that you will list the house with them IF they can get rid of your present agent. Be careful, that the first listing is cancelled and that you will owe the first agent nothing if the house is sold. You do not want to end up having to pay two agents! Get it in writing (this is very important).
IF the present agent and the Broker are hardnoses - tell them OK that you love walking up and down in front of their office with a sign and talking to everyone that goes into their office! You will insure that the local TV newscasters do a spot on them in the evening's news. You always wanted to be on TV and now is your chance and you thank them for the opportunity. [Don't get angry but be nice and polite].

[Bigfoot]

The Realtor should know that he has not signed a Buyer Agency Agreement with you, so telling him that he is not your Buyer's Agent shouldn't have had to come up.

In your listing agreement should be an outline of the Agent's duties to you. Since you feel that they have not been met, it is useful for indicating breech of contract.

Unfortunately with the Realtor being uninterested in terminating the contract, another Realtor may not be able to enter your information in the MLS system.

The market is really interesting right now and everyone doesn't flock to Open Houses the way they used to, so I wouldn't use that as a measuring tool.

I'm sorry for the way you've been treated, however, this may be the time to resort to adverse publicity. Which may help you get your house sold!