Instead of protecting your client, you decide to try to sell the information to other brokers in exchange for a “split fee”. This is what happened in Milwaukee regarding the sale of a 30 million dollar state building.
U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman found Larry Lupton of Brookfield guilty of bribery, wire fraud and two counts of making false statements to the FBI. He was accused of seeking $75,000 from a broker of a potential buyer and later providing the broker with confidential details of rival bids.
Lupton claims there is no law that prohibits brokers from discussing splitting their commissions as long as no payment happens without full disclosure by all parties. msnbc.com.
The audacity of the lawyer saying that this is all okay is amazing. He forgets that agents have the duty to protect their clients interests, not broker proprietary knowledge for their own gain.
Unfortunately this happens way too often as the not so good agents are worried about closing the deal as much as protecting their clients interests, just on a much smaller scale.
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I call for reform! There are many little money making loopholes that I dislike. Thats like being legally forced to have homeowners insurance, but they are not legally required to cover you even though you are paying.
This is way to common and it needs to be nipped in the bud. Unfortunately, it takes deals like these, large multi million dollar deals for anything to be done.
When a real estate agent isn’t financially stable, it makes it very difficult to keep priorities focused on the clients best interest and not on how to make payments that are due. I’m sure many do, but I can see a conflict of interest situation that has to influence some.
Money seems to be the root of all evil. It makes decent people turn bad. In today’s economy that seems to be even more true.