Question:
Most, that is 80% of the Offers we receive from cooperating agents, have the Acknowledgement section already signed.
This section clearly refers to acknowledging receipt of the accepted agreement. I understand how this could create confusion or potentially be used to argue implied intention or acceptance.-
Are there any legal issues arising from this? If you receive an offer with the acknowledgement already signed, do you have the co-op resend it without it or do you work with it?
Answer:
If you as an agent are in a legal proceeding even as a witness to a disputed transaction, having this field signed prior to receiving an accepted offer to acknowledge can be used to undermine your credibility and demonstrate incompetence. It could also be used to demonstrate you providing incorrect or misleading directions to your clients.
Many of the things agents brush off as “not a big deal” in service of “getting the deal done” demonstrate a lack of professionalism and a disregard for the duty owed to clients.
Since I do Expert Witness Reports, this Acknowledgement Section makes my life easier.
There are about 10 common mistakes that agents will make in writing and this is one of them. So, keep making the errors with this. It takes me about two pages in a 40 page Report to point out what the agent did wrong. So, the agent was either: 1) lazy, 2) careless, 3) foolish, 4) stupid or all four. The agent’s defence would be best if they just choose “lazy”. Many agents just learn about it, for the first time in the lawsuit. Judges enjoy this sort of error, it assists them in making their decision.
It is important to note that some software programs will fill in this information automatically, so it needs to be deleted in order to have the provision make any sense. It then should be inserted later when the final Acknowledgement is to be signed.
The document reflects poorly upon the agent who had this provision signed too soon, and that could be either the Buyer’s agent (most of the time) or the Seller’s agent.
Brian Madigan LL. B., Broker