Real estate agent for finding a tenant - question

[Jeni Nikolova]

Hi!

Posting here, as I am not sure I picked the right forum earlier:

We used a real estate agent to rent out our home in Ca last year. Long story short, she yelled at my husband and me on the phone, lost us a month of rent (due to having us sign an addendum we knew nothing about but assumed she was looking out for our best interests), and finally hung up the phone while trying to discuss finding the next tenant.

We had a contract with her to represent us in finding tenants last year, and she was paid a commission for an annual lease. That lease turned out to be 9 months, and due to the addendum we signed this is all we received - 9 months of rent.

Now 3 months before the term for which she had been paid a commission, we tried working with her to find new tenants. Unsuccessfully.

When she hung up the phone while talking today, we decided that terminating the relationship with her will be the right thing to do. So we sent an email stating that.

She is asking for her commission for the new term of the lease, for which we did not have a contract with her, and for which she did not find us tenants (but had posted online).

Is that reasonable?

[Patricia Steiner]

The only thing I wish you did much, much earlier was to fire her.  Reporting her to the broker is the right thing to do but don't expect much since realtors are "contractors - not employees of the firm.  Be sure to mention that the realtor was unprofessional and it was a poor reflection on her as well as the realty firm.  The demand for commission will most likely vaporize with that.  I'm sorry you encountered this...it's unacceptable.