Brokerage Practice, Agency Relationships, and Disclosures
Agency in Maryland
Licensees must give consumers the Commission's Understanding Whom We Represent disclosure at the earliest practical time, and the agency relationship is documented in a written brokerage agreement. The exam's recurring theme: identify who is the client and who is merely a customer.
Duties and dual agency
- Client-level duties: loyalty, confidentiality, full disclosure, accounting, reasonable care, and obedience to lawful instructions. Confidentiality survives termination.
- Customers receive honesty and fair dealing, not advocacy.
- In-house dual agency requires the informed written consent of both the seller and the buyer before the dual role begins. The dual agent may not disclose either side's confidential bargaining position and may not advocate for one party over the other.
- Showing a property listed by another broker creates no agency with the buyer.
Worked example
A brokerage lists a home and its own buyer agent produces the contract. Before the dual role starts, the broker must obtain written consent from both parties. At the table the buyer asks whether the seller is desperate to move. The dual agent may not reveal the seller's motivation or the buyer's ceiling; the agent can only facilitate the transaction and share information both sides authorize.
Traps that cost marks
Assuming buyer agency arises from a showing or a text message; letting a dual agent keep advising one side; presuming a customer is owed loyalty; forgetting consent must be written and obtained before dual representation, not after.