Okay I know his had to be addressed before but I could not find it..... here goes.

I put in an offer last week on a sfr for 132K(asking 149K, dom was 189).Very fair as I did pull comps of 6 sold and 6 active. I tried to get a hold of the LA but she never called me back before I faxed offer over. After I submitted the offer she called to let me know that the sellers owe 189K. I am furious! I did check the tax records and found out that there was a mortgage of 91K back in 96, but our system does not show seconds. So now my client is PO'd, my commission is in jeopardy and she is not returning emails or calls.BTW she's also the broker. What to do??????

Not good -

What would she have done if she received a full priced, cash, no contingency offer? She has put her license in jeopardy -

No jeopardy if her client is willing to bring $40K to closing table. Doesn't sound like that is likely though. In those situations I always put "Final contract may be subject to bank approval."

The legal verbiage that MUST be on the MLS is this: "This is a short sale. All terms and conditions are subject to lender approval. Any reductions in commission are to be split 50/50 between the listing broker and selling broker" If they do not have this listed on the MLS and you end up selling the property it does not matter what the bank is paying for commission, they listing agents owes you what is posted on the MLS at the time the offer was submitted. I have lost my commission by not posting this on the MLS so i have learned the hard way. In this situation I would report this to your local board and make sure they change the status on the MLS to short pay/subject to.

Not really sure what advice you are looking for?
You made an offer and it is just that till the seller accepts it subject to short sale approval from the lender.
Has the LA/Broker already submitted short sale paperwork to the lender? What exactly did the LA tell you other than the sellers owe more than your offer? You are a little short on information about what was said between you and the listing agent. Make sure you have a copy of the listing sheet showing the stated commission. Often times short sale lenders will only pay up to a certain commission percentage and if the listing agents offered co-op i more then the LA would still have to pay you the agreed upon percentage.


rrsoultions,
Your post may apply to CA regarding disclosure but may not apply in New England where the poster resides.

that verbage is not needes in the mls listing.. many agnets put in the listing that it is a short sale, however that is redundant in my mls as there is now a box to check while imputing the listing noting that it is subject to third party approval.. i mean, at the end of the day as an agent working for hte seller you want to stay within the rules, but you dont wnat to overadvertise the fact that it is a short sale. i mean 1 notation in the listing is enough to satisfy hte rules.

Each Mls is different. I specialized in short sale for 3 years.

At that time almost knowone had heard of them.

This is nothing more than the buyers agent thought they had a deal in the bag for there buyer and now they know chances are slim with the short sale. Unless it's an awesome deal you would be much better purchasing an REO. By the time you get short sale approval for your buyer it might not be the amount you want,and after weeks or months waiting for apprival MANY other deals will have come on the market.

I am just telling you from years of experience with short sales to take the path of least resistance and pursue other properties.

Closing ratio on shorts is very low.Reo-vacant,clear title,faster aceptance.....

Short sale condition should be disclosed either as a separate field, if your MLS software has it, or in a comments section. I'd make a complaint to your local Board and also contact the MLS to flag the listing so that it is changed.

As agents, we need to police other licensees to a certain extent so that hopefully they don't repeat bad behavior and mislead others in the future.

You've probably wasted a few hours of your time. At least you are working with a client that's ready to write offers. Now find something else.