eSignature Legitimacy for Independent Contractor Agreement in United Kingdom

How to eSign a document: e-signature legitimacy for Independent Contractor Agreement in United Kingdom

everybody this is zach the broker of zack taylor real estate so today i'm making a video that is completely different it is not a training video or anything else like that i want to start doing a video series where we start informing people that are either looking to get into the business of real estate or are already in the business and truly my reasoning for this is every single week i talk to new agents looking to transfer over to a brokerage and i just get the worst horror stories and i think by better informing people in the industry you're looking to get into it that we can better equip people with the right knowledge inform people help them make the right choice because that's why we created this brokerage all along was truly to help people and put them first and i think we can help do that by removing any like industry secrets or stuff hidden behind the curtain let's bring things to light let's inform people let's provide them with all the information they need to make the best choice for them whether that's our brokerage another brokerage i just want to help people and truly that starts with getting into the business and it can start right here with this independent contractor agreements i've seen so many crazy things with these and that this is where i want to start and again i'm not calling anybody out in this video everybody runs their business differently and that's okay but let's at least understand some of the things going on that way you can make the best choice so independent contractor status most agents when they get into real estate they are deemed independent contractors not employees now there are some companies out there where you'd be deemed an employee but majority of the time you're an independent contractor basically that means you are your own little small business yes you hang your license with a brokerage but you are still your own little small business you control your hours you control what you do during the day you control who you follow up with that is what independent contractor is and how it kind of differentiates itself from being an employee employee you can say hey you have to work this many hours you have to show up this day and time you have to do this during the day and so that's one thing with real estate agents that i hear very commonly is oh yeah i'm an independent contractor but our broker requires us to show up this day and time work this many hours call their leads do this and that and that really starts to blur the line between i see an independent contractor and i see an employee and so this is a really good helpful resource right here from the national association of realtors and so you can always copy this link if you need to i'll put it in the description below but it goes through different things of what is independent contractor versus employee and how that looks when you're working in real estate so check this out and then another link at the very bottom was what resources are available and i found this good one right here 10 tips for managing independent contractor relationships with your sales agents so let me show you this one right here don't require your real estate sales people to report to the broker's office on certain days or at certain times in order to perform general office administrative duties such as answering phones allow your real estate sales people to work where when and how they deem best and also make attendance at monthly staff or training meetings voluntary so again it goes back to uh when i hear agents saying oh yeah we're required to do this we're required to show up here we have to do this we have to do this we have to call these people for our broker that really starts to get into areas of employment status and i would be careful of that so when you are looking for a brokerage to hang your license with ask them what's required hey do i have to do i have certain mandatory obligations do i have anything mandatory that's required of me uh do i have to show up certain days and times and then you can better weigh uh does that support you and your small business or does that help their small business so that's a really key differential the other thing i want to pull up is when you are an independent contractor which most the time in real estate you are the brokerage that you hang your license with should have you sign some sort of ica or independent contractor agreement and all of these are completely all over the board and so what we did to be as fair as possible is we actually use an old tennessee association of realtor independent contractor agreement form so this is not something created by our attorneys drafted by us that favors us we wanted something that's as neutral and as fair as possible so read these agreements that is my number one tip when getting into this business whether it's us another company whoever you're going to go with read this agreement because a lot of times people just sign it kind of like a software update on their phone the terms of agreement hit accept and it's all these words and we don't really know what they say read this agreement and so in the mode of full transparency i want to share what we put in this and what to look for when you go with a brokerage so one thing that stands out to me is listing commission shall be divided as follows we put it in writing hey it is a hundred percent to you when you close the deal minus our transaction fee it is in writing you would not believe i've heard from several agents and it just it tears my heart when they sign up with a broker that promises them the world it's not in writing what the splits are they're just told hey it's this and then they start getting charged all these fees when they have closing hey there's a franchise fee oh i helped you with this deal you need to pay me an extra twenty percent uh oh we also have this fee we have an admin fee we have a business tax fee all these things that are not disclosed in writing and i just i i hate to see it and that's why i make this video because i want agents to be the most informed or if you're looking to get into the business i want you to have the best info to make the best choice and the other thing to look for is right here so every single one of these ic agreements will have some sort of cancellation clause it'll say hey upon terminating of this agreement maybe you left for another brokerage you transferred you went to a different company if that happens is there a cancellation fee and this is how we are starting to do things differently and we've done this from the start and we are truly trying to improve this industry change things and i know that starts with doing the little things right it's all the little things that add up and that's where we shine is let's do things right let's put people first and the way we do that is hey if you leave if you transfer if you go to another company if you fire us there's no cancellation fee that's why we put zeros here i've seen 25 percent fees 50 fees i've seen 75 cancellation fees if you leave we're gonna keep 75 percent as a cancellation fee of every deal you have going on and i think that's just that that's their business and that's how they do business but that's not how we do business we say hey if you leave for another company that means we failed you we were not doing something right we were fired we're not going to hold anything over you we're not going to charge you cancellation fee we didn't do our job so that's why we put a zero there the other thing is let me go ahead and share our terms as well and so what we say is as the brokerage you um actually as the agent you have to cover your mls fees and your local association well if you don't pay those after a certain amount of time they actually charge us as the brokerage and so we say hey if we ever incur any of your fees then we go ahead and just add that to your next monthly um next monthly office fee with us and that way we can get reimbursed so that's in there just out of being fair to all parties um we also say hey any mail that comes to us will open we go ahead and let you know uh if a rental or lease commission is less than 500 the broker will forego the 99 transaction fee and revert to an 80 20 split 80 to the agent and 20 to the broker we said this below 500 because if we continue to charge our transaction fee that would just be egregious on that amount of money so let's say for example you do a rental deal you make a hundred dollars we're not going to charge our normal transaction fee so we just say hey in that case we keep twenty dollars accounting insurance compliance helping you out with any questions with the deal we keep twenty percent so that'd be twenty bucks you keep eighty so that's in there as well uh right here is very important if licensee transfers to another brokerage zach to the real estate releases any leads or clients that belong to the licensee that are not in a pending transaction so most brokerages say if you have something pending it go it closes with us you can go ahead go to a different company we'll still pay you out but it closes under us well we go one step further and we say hey we also release any of your listings and your leads all your clients we release all those because again it goes back to the principle if you want to leave our company that means we are not doing something right and we do not deserve to keep your clients your family members your sphere of influence your listings those are yours so we release all those and that is probably few and far between if you look at different ica agreements uh the the this is probably very um very rare to find and so the last part is if licensee leaves zak to the real estate zachtal real estate will provide access to or a copy of any transaction files within the past three years upon request because again the state of tennessee requires us to keep a copy of everything for three years and again more horror stories but agents being locked out of their eSignature platforms locked out of their past files and we're like hey we'll give you copies of your deals anything within the past three years just ask us we'll give you a copy so we put all this in writing because we are trying to improve this industry we are trying to make things better we truly put the agent first and i know like i said earlier it starts with doing the little things right and if you do that consistently over and over and over we can continue to help more people and improve this industry so if you are in real estate or even if you're looking to get into real estate look over the independent contractor agreement in front of you whether that's our company another company read through it make sure the terms are favorable make sure you agree with everything you understand what happens if you ever go to another company and that should help you make the best choice of where you should hang your license if you have any questions let me know i'll also post the link of what everything we offer at zacktail real estate down below in the description and if you have any questions always feel free to reach out and i will see you guys next time [Music]