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hi I'm Annie Fitzsimmons I'm your Washington Realtors Legal Hotline lawyer today we have the Legal Hotline mailbag there are multiple offers on a property seller picks one and makes a minor counteroffer listing broker emails counter to the selling brokers office one of the other buyers comes back with a higher offer listing broker emails withdrawal of counteroffer form 36 a signed by seller to the original selling broker and to selling brokers office the time stamp says it was sent at 7:44 at 7:45 listing broker receives the signed counteroffer back from the selling brokers staff it was sent only to listing broker not to brokers office what is the status of sellers counteroffer pause this question illustrates two issues that need to be discussed there are probably many more that we could pick out but the two that we're going to talk about is the importance of buyer brokers to get buyers acceptance to listing broker as absolutely fast as possible and the second issue we're going to talk about is how do you email and acceptance in this competitive marketplace and I've taught classes all over the state in the last year and everywhere across the state I've been told the same thing to varying degrees we are in a competitive seller's market place because of that buyer brokers you have got to help your buyers understand the importance of acting and acting quickly once they have decided they want to accept sellers offer counteroffer I'm not saying that you should become high pressure salespeople or change the way you do business at all other than to help your buyers understand that once they have made that decision then buyer and buyer's broker you need to act quickly the Delta in time on this question was one minute but if this matter finds its way into a courtroom and the court looks at a withdrawal of counteroffer at 7:44 beating the acceptance at 7:45 seller's withdrawal wins in addition to that sellers argument in this particular question is further buttress by the fact that buyers broker in accepting sellers counteroffer albeit one minute late probably when sellers broker I'm sorry when buyers broker emailed buyers acceptance of sellers counteroffer buyer broker probably didn't even know that seller had withdrawn the counteroffer but they still failed to properly accept the offer because buyers broker emailed only to the listing broker and not to listing brokers office based on the statewide forms buyers acceptance or attempted acceptance even if it had been timely in this case would have been defect because the email went only to the listing broker and not to listening brokers office it's mind-numbing to me that our industry struggles with this issue how difficult is it really to put brokers email address on the to line and brokerages or brokers firms email address on the CC line that's all you have to do to competently email assuming that the purchase and sale agreement includes all the necessary emails to trigger the email provision in the first place but brokers your failure to include the other firms email address will render your clients delivery or whatever the document is that you're trying to deliver invalid I told you we're only gonna talk about two things we're gonna talk about one more actually bonus here's the third thing I've just given you this answer but listing broker you have to proceed with caution you have a buyer out there who believes they have accepted sellers counteroffer and in their minds they are moving towards closing your seller has a higher offer that seller wants to accept and your seller is looking for you to tell them given the green light so that they can accept that other offer the risk you run sell but a listing broker is green-lighting the seller to accept another offer and having a claim from this buyer that they are in fact the buyer of this property if this matter goes to a courtroom the answer I've just given you is the answer that I think a court will come to but I will be the very first to tell you that there are no guarantees and litigation there's not a case out there that can't be won or lost and so listing broker when you stand in your position as counselor to your seller because that's what you are advising them as to how to proceed with this other higher offer and light of the withdrawn offer know that you are setting your cellar up potentially for selling their house twice in the eyes of a court because we don't know how a court is going to rule on this issue we can presume we know what the contract says but we're only presuming so at the end of the day the lesson2 listing broker is you cannot give your seller legal counsel you have to advise your seller in this case in writing to seek the advice of legal counsel before they determine how to proceed most sellers probably aren't going to go talk to their lawyer at this point in the transaction instead they're going to want to either move forward with the buyer who thinks that they purchased the property or move forward with the other buyer but they don't want to spend time going to talk to a lawyer about which to do so seller so listening broker you're going to have to figure out how to give them the advice that they need you're going to advise them to seek legal counsel okay I'm not gonna go talk to my lawyer what can I do instead well the safest approach would be to work with a buyer who thinks that they purchase the property if that's not satisfactory to your seller then your seller may want to come up with some way that they can put the higher offer that they want to accept into a backup position you've got form 38a for that purpose unless or until they can make sure that they have dispensed with any contractual relationship with the first buyer you might have to think out of the box on this one you're welcome to send me an email and we can talk more about it if this is your situation send me a question on this or any other topic Legal Hotline at W a realtor org thank you for being a 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