Expert: Sue Bernstein - 10/7/2007

Question
We signed a Residential Listing Agreement in mid-August.  Our Agreement is for five months, but our agent told us that if at any time we wanted to take our house off the market, he would cancel the Agreement.  We have now decided not to sell our home at this time.

Is it as easy as notifying our agent of our desire to take our home off the market?  What costs/penalties might we incur?

Answer
Dear Kathy,

If your agent is going to honor his word he will just cancel the listing with no cost to you.  In the future it is best to always have these agreements in writing.
If you are choosing not to sell at this time it is in your agent's best interest to cancel so that you will choose to list with him in the future when you decide to sell.  If he has done a good job it would be the right thing to do to make us for his costs and time this time around.

Good luck and I hope this helps.

Sue Bernstein