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Are you selling your home, but you aren’t being represented by a licensed real estate professional? You may be a “mere posting” seller. A mere posting is when a real estate professional puts a seller’s listing on a Real Estate Board’s listing database, but the real estate professional has chosen or agreed not to provide services to the seller other than to submit the listing for posting on a listing database.

If you are a mere posting seller, you need to make sure you understand the role of the buyer’s representative. You need to know the services you will receive from the buyer’s brokerage (real estate professonal) and just as importantly, what services you won’t receive from the buyer’s brokerage.

What you need to know

• the potential buyer is using the services of a real estate professional
• the real estate professional is the agent of the buyer and must act in the buyer’s best interest
• the buyer’s representative does not represent you
• the buyer’s representative may provide administrative services to facilitate the sale of your home. They may act as a scribe for you to complete documents but cannot give you advice
• the buyer’s representative will ask you to pay a fee for selling your home
• the buyer’s representative will ask you to sign a Sellers Customer Acknowledgement and Fee Agreement prior to presenting the offer
• if you do not reach agreement on a fee, the buyer’s representative may have to talk to the buyer prior to presenting any offer
• the buyer’s representative cannot give you advice on the value of your home
• the buyer’s representative may give you information on homes similar to yours for sale and those that have sold

Consumers with no representation
You may wish to work with a real estate professional for a particular real estate transaction and not want a real estate professional to represent you. Examples of this include:

• the real estate professional represents a landlord of a large shopping centre and a potential tenant has an interest in a space in the mall
• the real estate professional has a written buyer brokerage agreement in place and attempts to sell a property where the owner is representing themselves
• the seller has chosen a mere posting option without representation to sell their residential property
• a real estate professional represents a new home builder exclusively and a potential buyer shows interest in the builder’s property
• a real estate professional is a tenant representative and approaches a landlord on behalf of a potential tenant

A client is a person that enters into a service agreement with a real estate professional. A customer is a person who has made contact with a real estate professional but does not engage them to provide services.

In the situation where the real estate professional represents the buyer and the seller is selling their home through a mere posting listing, the buyer’s real estate professional will treat the seller as a customer and provide sole agency representation to the buyer. This means they will give administrative services to the seller and full representation services to the buyer.

Disclosure of role and administrative services to the unrepresented seller
It is important for a buyer’s real estate professional to disclose to you that the buyer’s brokerage:

• does not represent you, the seller
• represents the buyer
• must be loyal to the buyer and always act in their best interest
• does not owe any agency obligations, and in particular, any fiduciary obligations, to you
• will not give you any services that require the exercise of discretion or judgement, or the giving of confidential advice, or the brokerage advocating on your behalf
• will communicate to the buyer all information from you, whether or not it is of a confidential nature. The exception is for confidential information the brokerage receives from you through a prior agency relationship with you
• will not give you information or advice that is not in the best interest of the buyer

Obligations to the seller
The buyer brokerage’s responsibilities to you, the seller, are:

• exercise reasonable care and skill in relation to the brokerage services
• not negligently or knowingly give you false or misleading information
• hold all monies the brokerage receives in trust in accordance with the provisions of the Act
• comply with the provisions of the Act, Rules, Regulations, and Bylaws

Administrative services to the seller
When it is in the best interest of their buyer client, the real estate professional may give administrative services to you, as a customer. Real estate professionals will give these services to a customer because doing so would be for the benefit of their client and the transaction. Administrative services are at the option of the real estate professional, without creating a client relationship. The brokerage, at its sole discretion, may give you, the unrepresented seller, the following information or services:

• real estate statistics and information on properties including comparable property information available through listing services or other local databases
• standard form agreements of purchase and sale and other relevant form documents and act as scribe in their preparation in accordance with the instructions of the seller
• the names of real estate service providers, but the brokerage will not recommend any particular service provider
• present, in a timely manner, all offers and counter-offers to and from the buyer and seller
• convey, in a timely manner, all information the seller wishes to communicate to the buyer
• inform the buyer and seller of the progress of the transaction