Legal but unethical situation

[Ben McPhail]

In October I met an owner of a property who was in the early stages of fixing up his house to put on the market.  He got me in touch with the realtor he was working with to show me the place.  We walked through and came to an agreement on the price.  I asked the seller's agent if we could be represented by the realtor we had been using.  She then threatened that if we did, we would have to pay their commission and she threatened if we did that then we would have to wait until the house hit the market.  It is legal in Alaska to have one agent for a transaction but looking back she did not check the box saying she would remain neutral.

  At this point there was just a verbal agreement on the price and nothing had been signed.  We proceeded without representation, and the day we went to her office to sign the papers she also presented us with an inspection report that the seller had bought so we did not even think to order one on our own.  The inspection was about 10 pages long and he missed a few things.  One of which was mold that has caused us to remodel the whole kitchen down to the studs.  Granted, unless a very thorough job was done it would have been hard to catch.  I do not really know what is expected of an inspector.

Anyways, I was interested in getting some feedback regarding this situation.  Although it may have been "legal" it did not seem very ethical.  After everything was finalized she asked us to think of her when we were looking at buying or selling another home.  Although I was very cordial and polite through the process I was surprised that she would expect us to continue working with her after not doing much to help us.

  Thanks for all of your help.