Response from Geneva Allen on 11/17/2024

My first encounter with this buyer occurred when he called me saying he was on the front porch of the house I had just listed for sale. When I tried to schedule an appointment to show him the house, he insisted that I phone the owner right then and ask the owner to show him the house. I was reluctant to call the owner at this late hour, but I felt this buyer could ring the doorbell and disturb the owner anyway. So, I called the owner who said he would be happy to let this buyer see his house. At this time I was not working as the buyer's agent. A few days after that the buyer emailed me with an offer price for the house but no terms of sale. The buyer said he wanted to represent himself and that he did not want a buyer’s agent. I sent the information he sent me in his email to the owners using quotes to be sure I conveyed his exact words. The owners said they needed a written offer with the terms of sale before they could reply to any offer. I conveyed this information to the buyer. In the next email from the buyer he told me that he contacted two other agents who would not represent him, so he asked me to represent him as a dual agent. (This was during the time the new real estate laws were being developed according to the NAR settlement, around August 17, 2024.) I explained to him that as a dual agent I could not tell him the price to offer and I could not tell the owners the price to accept or to counteroffer. I could not coerce the owners to accept his offer. And that I would treat everyone equally and fairly. To negotiate terms of sale, all I would be able to do would be to send his offers and counteroffers to the owners and send their counteroffers back to him. I also noted to him that I am bound by the SC Real Estate Laws and the Realtors Code of Ethics. I sent him SC's Disclosure of Brokerage Relationships, a buyer's agency agreement, and SCREC Dual Agency Form to sign. I explained all of these forms to the buyer. Only when he signed these documents did I become his buyer's agent. The buyer then sent me the terms for his offer. I prepared the offer document for him according to his terms and sent it to the sellers. The sellers counteroffered his very low offer but the buyer would not accept the counteroffer, so the buyer and sellers could not agree on the price. The buyer repeatedly accused me of not sending his offers to the sellers. Because the owners both wanted to sell sooner than later, after some time passed and they considered that an offer was on the table, they decided to accept the buyer’s very low price but only under their terms of sale. This time the sellers asked me to prepare their counteroffer on a clean offer document with the terms they would accept, which I did. I explained to the buyer that this was another owner’s counteroffer, but the buyer was annoyed that the counteroffer had terms the owners would accept, not his terms. So he refused the counteroffer and called me some names. This time the buyer and sellers could not agree on the terms of sale. Later the buyer contacted me again and asked me to send the owners another offer where he changed one of terms of sale. After much negotiation I was finally able to help the buyer and sellers agree on terms-of-sale and enter a purchase contract agreement. The buyer ordered a home inspection but after the home inspection, the buyer again said he did not want to buy the house, that it was not what he wanted. So he terminated the contract. The following week I began receiving emails from the buyer with a much lower offer price for the house. I sent his offer to the owners each and every time I received an email from the buyer but each email had the same low price and terms of sale. I always copied the information the buyer sent me and pasted it as a quote in the email I sent to the owners. I do this to be sure I am not sending my own interpretation of the message. But the owners did not want to respond to any of his offers. The buyer continued to accuse me of trying to keep him from buying the house in emails with not very nice language. He continued to accuse me of not sending his offers to the sellers. I did everything I knew to do to make this purchase work, but the owners did not want to accept the low price he was offering and they also said they no longer trusted this buyer and that they didn’t want to try to work with him any further. Recently a very nice couple who viewed the house with me decided to make an offer. These buyers and the homeowners negotiated the terms of their contract and now the house is under contract due to close soon. These buyers and the sellers have expressed their happiness with their contract. After the house went Under Contract, I received another email from the same complaining buyer using language I do not use, saying that I had not adequately helped him buy the house, and ending by calling me a “pathological liar” for at least the fourth time.

Response from Geneva Allen on 11/15/2024

These buyers were buying an unlisted house. I had an agreement with the owner that if I could find a buyer I would work as the buyer's agent, but the owners would pay my agent’s fee. This arrangement would save the owners from trying to negotiate terms of sale with buyers. After these buyers viewed the house, they contacted the owners rather than using my buyer’s agent services. They tried to negotiate terms of a contract leaving me out, but I had the contract with the owner’s signature stating the terms of our agreement. Once the buyers realized that there was no way to avoid the owners paying the fee, they told the owners they would pay the agent’s fee. After that, rather than allow me to help them with a smooth transaction, the owners tried to handle everything themselves, but every time they ran into trouble, they contacted me to fix it. I was not allowed to attend the home inspection to answer questions that came up with the home inspector, specifically questions regarding the hangar. The buyers questioned why the home inspector could not inspect the solar heat for the pool only to find out the owner had installed the solar panels and only a solar panel installer can inspect them. I could have answered these questions and others on the spot. I was not allowed to attend the closing to answer their false claims that I said they could close in absentee using DocuSign. These buyers told the attorney that I told them a closing could occur in absentee using DocuSign. I never told them that, they lied to the attorney who probably knew better. I have helped many buyers close in absentee, so I know the process and I work with the attorney’s office every way they need with in-absentee closings. These buyers told me that they both planned to attend the closing. They never told me or the attorney ahead of the closing that one of them would be in CA for the closing. As a result of this difficult conflict with a buyer, even through I have a long list of buyers waiting for an aviation property, I no longer try to help aviator sellers save a little on listing their properties for sale which in turn saves the buyers a little, too. If an aviator owner who owns in an airpark wants me to find a buyer for them, they must first come to some kind of agreement with an agent and list their house for sale.