I have the same fear of my offers not being submitted. In fact I truly believe it was not submitted based on the conversation I had with the listing agent. I even asked for a fax confirmation but the agent would not provide the confirmation. The reply was " it is standard to not receive anything in writing from the bank". I am going to put in the next offer...counteroffer requested.

so in summary of this conversation... there is no way that we can legally force a listing agent to confirm in writing that they have submitted an offer and confirm the client response in writing? Correct?

It's probably more depending on how your contract is written, and you (your buyer) might consider requesting the sellers signature and date in the offer if the contract is rejected.
Ours requires a sellers initials if it's countered or rejected. I think a full signatue and date would be more appropriate.

how is requesting anything in a contract that is ultimately rejected obligate the person who rejects the offer to do it? you can ask for a signature, to only present with buyers agent looking over shoulder or for a back rub upon rejection but a not yet accepted contract isn't binding by it's very nature so there is no obligation to respond at all. right?

Hello Everyone,

It's difficult to distinguish the lazy agent from the "I'm not obligated to call you unless my client accepts your offer or my client instructs me to inform you" agent.

We address the problem by disclosing offers over the web. All parties are informed that all offers will be disclosed and in the event of a multiple offer situation all parties can
modify terms of offers. pre-offers are not final and subject to approval.

http://www.makebestoffer.com/cgi-bin/AnyStreetAddress.pl?category=real&item=1200591781

This has worked wonderfully for sellers. We are currently testing a similar venue for buyers where buyers can solicit offers from sellers interested in selling. In the event that our buyer is interested in buying more than one property, sellers may compete by discounting their price. Nonetheless all offers are disclosed on the web.

I hope this helps.

Obviously, if the seller is not sincere in selling the property and communicating with a buyer, and the agent is not sincere in presenting the offer or asking the seller to respond in writing, and neither wants to abide by the state laws and the contract, you have a problem.
It's time to change your approach.

Usually this works, but I did have one case where the agent and seller were refusing to submit anything but full price offers. The property in the best of markets wasn't even worth their asking price. After a few weeks of back en forth I was able to piece together the story.

The seller was in Lis Pendis, but the bank was holding off on an actual auction date 'because the seller is in the process of selling'. What he was really doing was telling the bank he was trying to sell and the bank believe him. He was actually turning down all deals that came to him, in hopes he could drag it out a few more months until the market came back and he could sell for XX dollars over the cost of his note.

Sometimes you have to play a little rough, so I took this information and went to the Broker the agent was working for and within 24 hours my deal was magically presented to the bank and approved in a week (it was a small local bank--wish the national ones worked that quick).

Do not get me wrong, 99% of the agents I work with are great, I just happened to find one jerk--that's alright he doesn't have a job anymore...so sad....

I do believe there is a problem in my area with not all offers being presented to the seller. In addition to this, a little trick a few REO agents like to play in this area is "multiple offers." One of their listings could be on the market 1 day or 365 days, but whenever I submit my offer we are all of the sudden in a "multiple offer situation." Not that this doesn't happen, but I just find it mildly ironic that it always happens to me, with the same agents, no matter when the offer is submitted. May not necessarily be illegal, but certainly unethical in my opinion. So, I agree with the above post that 99% of the agents I work with are great, but sometimes you do have to play a little rough with a handful of people.