The Agency Agreement is a legally binding contract between the real estate company and the legal owners of the property or business. The salesperson has been authorised to conclude this agreement on behalf of the company he/she represents, but is not a party to this contract. The salesperson merely provides the services detailed in the contract and therefore receives remuneration according to his/her contract of employment with the company.
Referral of a Listing Process
What if the vendor is currently listed with another real estate company
If the vendor is still under contract with another company, we must send the company a "Notice of Cancellation of Agency" form completed by the vendor.
The Online Agency Agreement Form
The prospective clients must fill in the online agency agreement form which will require them to provide information about all the legal owners of the property, the property itself, their solicitor and in the case of a commercial property, their accountant.
They will also have to select the agency agreement package they wish to sign up for. For residential and lifestyle properties, we offer the Deluxe Sole Agency, Partnership Sole Agency, Economic Sole Agency and General Agency agreement packages.
For rural properties we only offer the Rural Sole Agency Agreement package. For Commercial, we offer the Commercial Property Sole Agency, the Business Sole Agency and the Commercial Property and Business Combination Sole Agency Agreement packages.
Each package have an upfront fee which must be paid in full prior to any marketing being booked. The whole upfront fee on each package is subtracted from the final amount in professional fees owed on sale. Upfront fees paid will not be refunded if the listing is cancelled, withdrawn or similar and this is clearly detailed in the information provided to prospective clients in the CMA, on our website and in the terms and conditions section of the agency agreement form they sign.
All our packages have a minimum professional fee of $5 000 + GST.
The residential and lifestyle packages (excluding the General Agency Agreement) have a maximum professional fee of $25 000 + GST. Maximum fees are not capped on General Agency Agreements. Our rural and commercial packages have a maximum capped fee of $50 000 + GST.
Each package have a defined marketing package that is offered for free to vendors. They can not exclude or swap out any elements of the marketing packages. They can however, at their own cost purchase additional marketing if they so wish. The detail marketing packages are also included in the CMA documentation so you will have it on hand when discussing the options with your prospective clients.
Our offerings are designed to attract serious sellers and discourage those who are not serious about selling, i.e. time-wasters. We offer exceptional choice and value for money and therefore we do not discount our fees.
The online agency agreement form captures all the information we need to comply with our obligations under the Anti-money laundering act and all the consents we require under the REAA 2008.
Once the form is submitted, it will automatically create the property record and vendor contact records in VaultRE and save the agency agreement details in a PDF in the filing cabinet of the property record in VaultRE.
Signatures and AML approval
If the vendor is filling in the form online, they can electronically sign it before submitting the form. If there are multiple signatures required of parties in different locations, each must sign and select "save and continue" (NOT SUBMIT) and then email the provided link to the next party who should sign. The last person to sign hits SUBMIT.
Salesperson must obtain all the required proof of identification and address, as is required to process the AML approval.
The AML documentation is then uploaded to the AML Hub by the salesperson and the Compliance Manager will review it and notify the salesperson if/when they may proceed to date the agency agreement. An agency agreement can only be dated once AML approval has been received. The fully signed and dated agency agreement must then be uploaded to VaultRE as the "signed" copy.
Once the agency agreement is a contract (dated), the salesperson must notify the Finance Manager to invoice the clients for the upfront fee.
What happens when the vendor and salesperson does not get along and they want out?
If a vendor is unhappy and don't want to work with a particular sales person, they can request a different salesperson to work with. As they have already invested an amount of money (the upfront fee) in the agency agreement, it is in their best interest not to move companies, but rather to work with a different salesperson within Haze Real Estate.
At the first sign of things not going as it should, immediately discuss the potential issue with management who will try to mitigate the issue. if however there is no other way, management will assign another salesperson to the listing based on the best personality to handle the vendors. If this happens, the original listing agent will receive a referral fee only when the listing sells and the agent responsible for the listing at time of sale will be regarded as the listing agent for the purposes of calculation and payment of professional fees.
If however the vendor insists on withdrawing the listing or cancelling the agency agreement, the salesperson must email them the link to the online "Cancellation of Agency Agreement" form. The link is available in the "Appraisal Resources" column. This link is not publicly available on the website and thus must be emailed.
The submitted form will automatically go to the General Manager who will handle it from there. Please make sure your vendor remembers that the upfront fee will not be refunded if they cancel their agreement with Haze Real Estate.