Realtor commission???

[Patricia K.]

I have a rental property that I listed with a realtor over a year ago; currently there are tenants with another year on the current lease. Within the rental agreement is a clause saying that if a sale results from the lease, the realtors are entitled to 6% commission. My question is, does that commission hold after the original lease is complete? If my renters decide they want to stay after the original term, and I don't use a realtor to draw up the second lease, would I still have to pay commission to the realtors if they ended up buying the house 4 years later? I've not had to worry about this before but the property is in another state and I had to list with realtors to find tenants...

[Andy D.]

My thought would be that if the tenant renewed the lease with you after that initial one year and the realtor was not involved in that renewal, then you would not owe them a commission. I'm not sure what state the property is in or what the rules are there, but in my state, a realtor has to show that they are the "procuring cause" of the transaction in order to be paid. If you end up selling the house years down the road, I think a realtor would have a hard time trying to establish that procuring cause. I wish you luck and let us all know how it turns out?