Question:
“My wife and I made an offer and the seller accepted another offer without responding to ours. Don’t they have to respond? My agent said the seller’s agent is required to submit the offer to the seller. And he said if they don’t accept it, they must sign a written rejection, which the agent has not done despite our requests. What can we do about this?”
Answer:
I’m sorry you didn’t get the house.
Your agent is giving you some correct and some incorrect information.
Correct: Indeed, the seller’s agent has a duty to the SELLER to submit non-frivolous offers to the seller.
Incorrect: The seller’s agent is not required to get a written rejection, nor is the seller obligated to sign a written rejection.
Here it is straight from the California Bureau of Real Estate. On page 13 of the PDF, page 4878 of the entire document:
4. Rejection of offer
In the event the offer is rejected and no counter offer will be made, it is a good practice for the licensee to provide the buyer’s agent with an acknowledgement that the offer was reviewed by and rejected by the seller.
So while it may be good practice for the seller’s agent to get a signed rejection, it’s not required.
