Two Buyer Clients, One House, One Sunday Night
Priya is a broker at a four-agent firm. She represents Wei, a pre-approved buyer with a $650,000 ceiling. On Friday she shows Wei a new listing at $625,000; he says he will decide over the weekend. On Saturday, Priya shows the same house to her other buyer client, the Ortegas, who say they want to offer $645,000 with a 21-day closing and are willing to go higher. Priya knows Wei would almost certainly match or beat that offer, and she also knows from the listing agent that the sellers are divorcing and anxious to close quickly. Both sets of buyers now want to write offers Sunday night, and both want Priya to represent them. Priya's managing broker is out of town until Monday.
1. Is this dual agency? What must happen before either offer is written?
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It is not dual agency. Dual agency arises when a firm represents both sides of the same transaction-buyer and seller. Wei and the Ortegas are both buyers; the firm is on one side of the deal. No dual-agency consent form cures anything here, and treating this as dual agency would mislabel the conflict and skip the disclosure that actually matters.
Washington law does not forbid a firm from representing competing buyers, but it does require:
- Each client's informed understanding that the firm represents other buyers who may compete for the same property-confirmed in writing if there is time, documented in the file if there is not.
- Strict information barriers inside the firm.
- Notice to the managing broker now, not Monday. This is a supervision issue, not a Sunday-night improvisation.
2. What information does Priya owe each client, and what may she not do with what she knows?
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She owes each client loyalty, confidentiality, and disclosure of material facts.
She may not use Wei's $650,000 ceiling to shape or encourage the Ortegas' offer. She may not tell Wei the Ortegas' price, terms, or closing date, and she may not tell the listing agent or the sellers what either client's ceiling is. She may not become a conduit for one client's terms to the other, even if a client asks her to.
She should tell each buyer the market truth: the property is drawing interest, offers are likely, and each should decide on his own analysis and be ready to move. If Wei asks directly whether anyone else is offering, the honest answer is that the firm represents other buyers who are interested-that is a disclosure that lets him decide, and it does not reveal a term.
The trap is giving escalation advice ("you should go to $660k"). If that advice is driven by the Ortegas' offer rather than by the market, it is a breach dressed up as advocacy.
3. Design a defensible plan for Sunday night.
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- Call the managing broker before either offer is drafted.
- Send both clients the same written disclosure: the firm represents other buyers, the firm will not share one client's confidential information with the other, and each should decide on the property's merits.
- If both still want to write, write both. Transmit both to the listing agent in whatever order the clients direct. The seller chooses; Priya does not rank, delay, or shop one offer against the other.
- Offer the exit. If either client is uncomfortable with the arrangement, that client can use another firm. Referring one out is always cleaner than a complaint later.
- Document everything: times, disclosures, who said what, and the fact that neither client received the other's terms.
What Priya must not do is decide, even silently, that Wei "deserves" the house because he saw it first, or that the Ortegas' higher price is better for her. Either instinct converts a manageable conflict into a loyalty claim.