Brokerage Relationships and Agency
Two structures, one default
Colorado recognizes single agency (seller/landlord agent or buyer/tenant agent) and transaction-brokerage. Transaction-broker is the default: a licensee working with a buyer without a signed single-agency agreement is a transaction-broker, not the buyer's advocate. Single agency requires a written agreement. Colorado also permits designated brokerage - two licensees in the same firm each acting as a single agent for different parties - only with written informed consent.
Written disclosure of the working relationship must be made at the earliest practicable opportunity and before the parties sign a contract.
Duties
Single agents owe loyalty, obedience, disclosure, confidentiality, accounting, reasonable care, and advocacy. Transaction-brokers owe honesty, reasonable care, accounting, and disclosure of known adverse material facts - but not loyalty or advocacy. Neither role permits concealment of defects from either side, and confidential information (a seller's bottom line, a buyer's maximum) may not be spread around without consent.
Traps:
- Assuming the agent showing the house represents the buyer.
- Believing a transaction-broker may stay silent about a known foundation problem - adverse material facts go to both sides.
- Switching from transaction-broker to single agent mid-transaction without a new written agreement.
- Forgetting that dual single agency without designation is not allowed.
Worked rule: a buyer calls the listing agent directly. Unless a single-agency agreement is signed, that agent remains a transaction-broker and must treat both sides evenhandedly - no coaching the buyer on how low the seller will go. The signed disclosure should be delivered before any offer is written.