Are Referral Fees Due to the Agent who maintained the Client Relationship?

[koltin]

I need some insight from Real Estate Agents located in Canada, preferably Alberta.

I am a licensed Real Estate Agent in Alberta, however I only do referrals. My main business is vacation rental management, and we have a number of visitors who we work with for years and then they decide to buy in this area. I referred a client to a Real Estate Agent in the area the client was looking to relocate to. I only refer qualified and well-informed clients, so when I called the potential Real Estate agent this client was already ready to purchase a property. My call to the Agent was on April 27th. She met with my clients Apr 28th. Their purchase closes on July 19th.

The agent now claims that she is not paying a commission because she found my clients email address in her database. She admits to not having met these clients, nor having ever heard of them, prior to my April 27th phone call. She became aware that their email was in her database on April 28th, but failed to mention this until yesterday -- 2 days prior to closing. She keeps referring to herself as being "honest and fair", but I feel differently. If honesty and fairness were in play here, she would have notified me immediately and we would have discussed options at that time. And had she done so, I may have not continued to spend time with these clients (they continued to consult with me during their sales process, because they know and trust me). I have spent countless time, money and effort on this deal. This wasn't a standard Referral Fee (where a phone call yields the fee in full). I've earned this.

I have known these clients for over 2 decades. There is no doubt in my mind that it was my recommendation that prompted the sale, and not an email in an ill-maintained database. My client had signed up for Automatic Updates from a number of area realtors, and this agent coincidentally happened to be one of them. The Referral Fee was disclosed to my clients prior to meeting with their new agent.

The referral fee due would likely be $1600 or so. The agent is claiming no referral fee is due. I am clearly upset because she has waited until NOW to tell me this (and only because I emailed her to follow up prior to closing day). I have suggested the fair thing to do would be to ask the clients what prompted them to use her services. Was it my personal recommendation? Or was it their email address in her database. I think we all know the answer to this question.

I clearly will never be referring any clients to this woman ever again, and neither will my clients.
So, I'd love to hear some opinions. How would you proceed?

[barnett]

Speaking from the other CA, California, you can charge the other realtor with an ethics violation. No guarantee you will get anything out of it, but it's possible.

For future reference, always send a referral agreement form to be signed with specific terms on it prior to releasing contact info for the client referral.