Going around/ditching my buyer's agent on a seen property?

[Doug Johnson]

I looked at a home 2-3 months ago which is no longer listed. I expect that he's still open to selling but just couldn't get the price he wanted. If I dealt with him without my seller's agent, I'd bet that we could arrive at a price that would suit him. I would plan to use a fee-for-service agency as my agent, which would run me $3,500. I'm wondering if I did this, would I get caught by my seller's agent?

I don't feel bad about "cheating" her because she was horrible and did absolutely nothing other than be there when I toured the home. I found it, came to her with it, and she subsequently put me in direct touch with the seller to get info on the house and iron out any questions. Apparently his seller's agent was just as useless as my agent was. Neither of them wanted to do the least bit of work but still split a 6% commission. Her only advice to me was that I should be able to, "Jew him down". She was a real piece of work. My financial advisor, who is a licensed broker in two states, told me that I should ditch her, which I did. 

Anyway, I think by contract, I'm bound to her on this house for a year but all she did was be there at one of the two showings that I did on the house. I'm just wondering if I would get caught if I went around her. Not only would I like to save the money, possibly more than anything, it would be utterly galling to pay a morally offensive individual thousands of dollars for basically no work at all. She was utterly useless and seems to exist as a parasite. 

Thanks

[James Wise]

Originally posted by @Doug Johnson:

I looked at a home 2-3 months ago which is no longer listed. I expect that he's still open to selling but just couldn't get the price he wanted. If I dealt with him without my seller's agent, I'd bet that we could arrive at a price that would suit him. I would plan to use a fee-for-service agency as my agent, which would run me $3,500. I'm wondering if I did this, would I get caught by my seller's agent?

I don't feel bad about "cheating" her because she was horrible and did absolutely nothing other than be there when I toured the home. I found it, came to her with it, and she subsequently put me in direct touch with the seller to get info on the house and iron out any questions. Apparently his seller's agent was just as useless as my agent was. Neither of them wanted to do the least bit of work but still split a 6% commission. Her only advice to me was that I should be able to, "Jew him down". She was a real piece of work. My financial advisor, who is a licensed broker in two states, told me that I should ditch her, which I did. 

Anyway, I think by contract, I'm bound to her on this house for a year but all she did was be there at one of the two showings that I did on the house. I'm just wondering if I would get caught if I went around her. Not only would I like to save the money, possibly more than anything, it would be utterly galling to pay a morally offensive individual thousands of dollars for basically no work at all. She was utterly useless and seems to exist as a parasite. 

Thanks

Contract is the contract. So based on what you stated you'd open yourself up to the risk of her suing you for the agreed upon commission. All the ancillary information you put in your post about her and your feelings towards her are irrelevant details. Sounds like she'd have a pretty good case based on what you described.