REFFERAL OR FINDERS FEE FROM NON AGENT TO NON AGENT

[Alyssa De Los Santos]

I'm not a licensed real estate agent and I invest in TX. I've been considering reaching out to my local delivery drivers and postal workers to help find vacant and dilapidated properties in my area. I want to offer them $300 if I close on a property they send me. Is this something I am allowed to do? I know that licensed agents can't give a finders fee to non licensed agents but what if we we're both unlicensed?  

If so, can I just write them a check or does it need to go through title?

Thanks in advance for the help, 

[Ronald Allen Barney]

To agents from non-agents the loophole is to buy it as a lead, and pay up front so that it won't be seen as "too similar" to a commission.  If the lead bails and doesn't go to closing, that's a risk the agent is expected to take (and will color their eagerness to buy anymore leads from you, so for repeat business you will want to make sure it's likely the lead will go to closing).

From agent-to-agent it's a referral and the referring agent usually gets an easy 25% of commission for making a phone call.  But it's a golden phone call so the paying agent doesn't mind the split.

Between non-agents the only thing you can't do is make the fee a function of or contingent upon closing, because for regulators that starts to smell too much "like a commission".  I'd call it a lead fee since those are so common.