Agency laws vary from state to state - and they continue to evolve. The goal is to provide competent and professional service to the consumer. When there are potential conflicts in those fiduciary duties, the obligation of each agent is to disclose the nature of that conflict and to obtain the consent of the parties involved in the transaction. The following are some of the common terms:
Agency - This is a framework that developed in the law to allow individuals to act through another person or representative. This particularly occurs in commercial transactions.
Examples might include hiring an attorney to represent you in a business transaction, working with a stock broker to purchase stocks or other investments, or working with a real estate broker to buy or sell real estate.
Your legal agent may have unlimited or limited powers on your behalf. Your legal agent owes you certain fiduciary-like statutory duties such as confidentiality, promoting your best interests, and exercising reasonable skill and care.
Buyer's Agent - Traditionally, buyers of residential real estate worked with a real estate broker or sales associate on a non-agency basis. In other words, the sales associate you worked with acted as the legal agent of the seller and not as the buyer's legal agent. In contrast, buyers in commercial transactions often work with a real estate sales associate as their agent.
Now, buyers may contract with the agent they are working with to represent them. As a buyer, you have access to listings available to your buyer's agent through the Multiple Listing Service. As a buyer, you will receive other services from your buyer's agent such as financing information, assistance in determining your particular price range and assistance in facilitating the closing. Typically, the buyer and the brokerage company enter into a written brokerage agreement.In addition, the buyer's agent will owe you all of the fiduciary duties as defined in agency law, including loyalty, confidentiality, accountability and reasonable care and skill. The buyer's agent will represent your best interests during the transaction.
Seller's (Listing) Agent - A seller's agent works to assist the seller in locating a buyer and in negotiating a transaction suitable to the seller's specific needs.
A seller's agent has fiduciary duties to the seller which include loyalty, full disclosure, confidentiality, diligence, obedience, reasonable care and holding safe monies entrusted to the agent. Although a seller's agent represents the seller in the fiduciary capacity, they owe the buyer fairness and honesty.
If your sales associate is representing the seller, just what services can you, as a buyer, hope to get? Plenty. As agent of the seller, real estate professionals fulfill that agency relationship by assisting buyers in all aspects of the home purchase.
The law requires that all sales associates treat buyers with honesty and fairness. In addition to the law, there is strong motivation to do so because buyer satisfaction means repeat and referral business. Sales associates want you to think of them the next time you or a friend is selling a home.
Limited or Dual Agency - In this type of situation, both the seller and buyer in a transaction are represented by the same legal agent and in this case, there are specific statutory duties that the dual agent owes to both the buyer and the seller.
However, those duties have a "limitation". Most notable is the duty not to disclose the confidential information of one party to the other. Dual Agency is allowed only with your consent.
Designated Agent - This means that a buyer or seller has designated or selected one or more agents in a brokerage to represent him/her as a buyer's agent or seller's agent. This situation will arise should a purchaser by represented by another sales associate in this office.
Show Low Office Randolph Tenney, Broker 60 South White Mountain Rd. Show Low, Arizona 85901 Office: (928) 532-1111 Toll Free: (800) 237-6230 Email: info@gmactenney.com |
Pinetop/Lakeside Office Mark Rodenborn, Branch Manager 1413 E. White Mountain Blvd. Pinetop, Arizona 85935 Office: (928) 367-3100 Toll Free: (800) 422-6812 Email: info@gmactenney.com |
Snowflake/Taylor Office Troy Goodwin, Manager 1300 S. Main St. Snowflake, Arizona 85937 Office: (928) 536-5600 Toll Free: (866) 297-0143 Email: info@gmactenney.com |
Holbrook Office Yvonne Larson, Branch Manager 1100 W. Hopi Dr. Holbrook, Arizona 86025 Office: (928) 241-1229 Email: info@gmactenney.com |