First time homebuyer from Toronto. We were given a reference to a broker by a friend. As we did not know anything about buying a house we placed all our trust in the broker. We were told that we had to sign a agency agreement and that all brokers worked with an agreement. We were asked to sign for a period of eleven months. We signed the agreement but were not provided any explanation about the agreement and were not provided copies of the agreement. We were told the agreemnt was a formality and we could let them know verbally whenever we wanted to break it. We placed an offer for a house. The offer went through and then on inspection we found the house had many defects and we decided to ask our agent to renegotiate to lower the price. During the whole process we realised the agent was not ethical and did not look for our intrestes rather more interested in closing the deal and commission. We decided to cancel the offer and verbally informed the agent of our decision to not work with them. It took us a month to get our deposit money for the offer we had placed. We did not contact the first broker and we did not look for a house for a month and half and then we found one we liked. We placed an offer with another agent and closed the house. Last week the first broker sent us papers in the mail suing us for the commission for the other house we purchased. The copies of the agreement that we had signed with them was also included but on taking a closer look at the agreement, I did not see any clause to break the agreement. My questions is are such occurances commomplace and can we complain about the first broker as they were unethical. Can we get some information or help on how to deal with this situation

Many defects can be open to interpretation,that's like saying i want a well done pizza,what you might consider major things might be minor to someone else.Be in the sellers shoes for a minute they accept an offer and now you want to use every little thing to nitpick the price.The seller says they are taking advantage of us and creating problems to lower the price.

The contract should have been created with a right to terminate upon unsatisfactory inspection of the home if any major flaws are found.This way before the seller accepted your contract,they knew it was going to have conditions and were ready to deal,if they didn't accept your contract with those terms then you could have save the inspection and tying up your money in the forst place and gone on to another house.


Yes this happens alot,you should have written a letter of termination to there broker asking for release of the buyers brokerage agreement before you went looking at another home.the eba is not just for that home but any home you by within that period that you are under a buyers contract.Personally i don't roll like that because if you don't want to work with that agent they should let you go.

consult an attorney you will need one

You could call your local tv station and name the brokerage involved that might get them to back off the lawsuit.

good luck

not giving legal advice

First, I wonder if we are talking about an agent as apposed to the managing broker? Anyway, the first sign of trouble was when he told you him telling you this, the fact you where not given a copy of the document and that you where told that a signed agreement was a formality all point to a very unethical agent.

I don't know the Canadian system, but I suspect that you can file a grievance with the Province's licencing body. If you where in fact not working with the managing broker of the brokerage, you might want to give that person a call and threaten a compliant against the agent and the broker.

You should definitely contact an attorney.

Before contacting an attorney (my father was an attorney and told me, if I can resolve a problem without getting an attorney involved I will be better of). I would document:
1.The agent initially did not read or explain the agreement to you, especially the paragraph (if there is one) that says you should/can have an attorney review the agreement.
2.You did not get a copy of the agreement.
3.The agent did not represent your best interests during the inspection process (I hope you have proof)
4.The agent did not contact you for xx days and you felt you had no further obligation to him (abandonment by the agent).
Take the documentation to the broker and ask him to release you from any agreements immediately, or you will get the local board of realtors and the media involved. (I think the threat of pickets in front of a business works also)