Recently, Li Sun’s new TV show ‘Anjia’ is made over, do you support it ~

The TV show revolves around the real estate agency industry and tells the story of a real estate agency center called ‘Settling down in the world’. The heroine Sijin Fang that Li Sun played is a vigorous, professional and dedicated real estate intermediary manager, and the other manager Wenchang Xu played by Jin Luo is a gentle and elegant pushover, having a group of employee with distinct personality...

This TV show seems to be the real workplace of real estate agents around us, the characters in it not only initiating warm friendship, but also raising legal issues.

Plot one: The haunted house is free of charge

Huang wanted to buy one hunted house against evil spirit, so Sijin Fang sold the house she rented to Huang, where there’s been a murder, which made both of them satisfied.

The person that dare to buy haunted house is not much, after all in real life most people wouldn’t get involved. So if there is really such a hunted house, does the intermediary have the obligation to tell the buyer?

In 2016, Zhang from Chengdu through one intermediary called Soufang-Fangtainxia Company, reached a housing sales contract with Huang. After Zhang knew the last tenant of this house had jumped from it and thus died, he sued both Huang and the intermediary to the court. Finally, the court ruled to cancel the contract, and the aforementioned company shall return Zhang intermediary fees for not performing investigation obligation strictly.

So, intermediary not only cannot conceal the fact that the house is haunted, but also need to check it concealcoactively!

Some might say that the so-called ‘haunted house’ is superstitious and we should resist it. In fact, folk culture is a long-term historical accumulation and continuation, has formed the general public's understanding and judgment, and then affect their behaviors. In science, the haunted house may not affect the actual use value of the house, but people will be afraid of it! Taboo, fear, anxiety and other bad psychological feelings will reduce the transaction value of the house, thus adversely affecting the buyers' expectations of the real value of the house, which is a major issue affecting the conclusion and performance of the sales contract.

Therefore, for the major matters in transaction, real estate agents naturally have the obligation to fully investigate, and strictly collect housing information. If the house is haunted, intermediary also have the duty to disclose, otherwise the result may be in vain like Soufang-Fangtianxia Company~(tip: there is no clear definition of haunted house in law which usually refers to the house having an abnormal death such as suicide or homicide but not natural death)

Plot two: Don't believe the intermediary that release false information and speculated randomly, which is called ‘pheasant intermediary’ in China.

In order to save a point of the intermediary fee, Yu canceled his order with Sijin Fang and signed the agreement with the next door pheasant intermediary ‘Aladdin’. Then, the house was seized by the court , so Yu asked ‘Aladdin’ to solve this problem, but it said intermediary fee does not include this kind of service.

This is what kind of rascal excuse!

According to the measures for the management of estate agency, the letting agency shall check the house that is consigned to sell or rent, ownership certificate, the identify certificate of principal and another material before hanging out. Therefore, under normal circumstances, ‘Aladdin’ is completely possible to know that there are other rights on the house and it may be seized by the court. As intermediary agency,‘Aladdin’ should report truthfully when providing intermediary services for buyers. According to the contract law of the People's Republic of China, if the broker intentionally conceals important facts related to the conclusion of the contract or provides false information, thus harming the interests of the client, it shall not only not require payment of remuneration but also be liable for damages.

What if Aladdin doesn't know? Sorry, that's not an excuse. In addition to facilitating both parties to sign a sales contract, intermediary agency shall maintain the legitimacy and security of the transaction. It is at fault and shall assume the corresponding responsibility for the loss of the buyers if it do not investigate or investigate clearly!

Plot three: what the intermediary feared most is being skipped by the buyer and the seller.

Sijin Fang took Mr Gao to Guanlan residential area to see the house, and Mr Gao with satisfactory wanted to sign the contract the next day. However, the next day Mr Gao directly signed the contract with the real estate company, which made Sijin Fang lost a lot of intermediary fees.

The aforementioned situation is called ‘skipping the order’. After the intermediary has fulfilled its obligation to provide resources and promote the transaction between the two parties, the seller or both parties skip the intermediary to enter into a sales contract or entrust another intermediary. The duck flew away(Chinese idiom means: in vain), which is the most painful thing for intermediary!

In fact, it is a very common type of intermediate contract dispute that the intermediary sues the client for ‘skipping the order’ to assume the liability for breach of contract. What kind of situation would be considered as ‘skipping the order’? Let's study the guidance case of the Supreme Court -- Shanghai Zhongyuan property consulting co., LTD. V. Dehua Tao mediation contract dispute case.

In this case, Tao and Zhongyuan corporation signed an real estate purchase confirmation letter, but Tao skipped Zhongyuan corporation to sign a housing sales contract after Zhongyuan corporation provided housing sales information for him, which broke the no-skip clause in the aforementioned confirmation letter. Thus, Zhongyuan company sued Tao to the court for paying RMB 16750 of liquidated damages. During the trial, the court found that the house involved was listed for sale by the owner of the original property through a number of intermediary companies. Tao and his family learned about the same house through multiple channels, so the court did not consider that Tao had skipped the order and hold the case dismissed.

Through this case, the Supreme Court has cleared about the legality and validity of no-skip format terms, but cleared that, ‘the buyer who gets the property information released by multiple realtors through the proper channels, shall have the right to choose one intermediary company with low price and good service, which shall not be decided as breaking a contract’. So, the keys to measure ‘skipping the order’ are: the positive of intermediary to offer service, whether the client uses intermediary service to close a deal, and intermediary's authorization is exclusive or not exclusive and so on negative comprehensive factors. In the final analysis, this guiding spirit is to promote fair competition between real estate agencies and protect the legitimate rights and interests of consumers.

Well, that's about it. Life is full of law. See you next week~