1% Short Sale Admin Fee by Banks

[Kathleen Thomas]

I have been doing short sales for about 3 years now, but this is the first time I have recieved from a bank a short sale fee of 1% of the selling price payable by the buyer. Has anyone else seen this? Is anyone aware of a way around this fee? Seems like banks are really scraping the bottom here by charging the buyers. I'm really upset about this.

[Kathleen Thomas]

In the transaction I was talking about - the buyer actually did pay the 1%. I tried to argue with the bank about it, but I didn't fight too much because the buyer was willing to pay and I wanted to get it closed. However, I was told on the QT by a rep from the company that if you refuse to pay it, they will evenutally back down. But it might have to be resubmitted as a new file again. That delays the process and with the falling market - the value will be even less the next time around so you might want to put in an even lower offer! That was the only file I had with the admin fee out of the hundreds we have done.