The Oregon REALTOR® Forms contain two optional variations of external payment of Buyer Broker fees:
Line 4(f) establishes a seller’s payment to the Buyer Broker firm [this can flow through escrow]. The amount in this instance is not drawn from the listing agreement or the listing agent’s compensation. The number is going to be an element of the Buyer’s offer, a request from the Buyer to the Seller that the Seller take on a buyer payment obligation. The seller has the ability, when receiving a Buyer offer with a number input in line 4(f), to accept the offer and take on the payment obligation, reject the offer, or counteroffer and modify the line 4(f) value and other terms of the offer that the Seller found displeasing.
Line 4(g) provides an informational statement about the cooperative compensation value that the Buyer and Seller Agents have already agreed upon. A number written into line 4(g) does not create an obligation [as lines 28-29 state], it is merely an informational explanation of the number, ensuring that the parties are made aware of the broker’s cooperative compensation value, and allowing Buyer to potentially request seller direct contributions in line 4(f) if the value in 4(g) is not sufficient to cover the entirety of the Buyer’s payment obligation to their agent. The cooperative compensation value in this line 4(g) needs to be entered into separately and outside the sales agreement, before the offer is accepted, to avoid pitfall scenarios where broker disagreement over the cooperative compensation can result in failure of the buyer-seller contract. [e.g. Buyer only has $X to purchase the house with and offers exactly $X, if the disagreement of the agents results in Buyer suddenly needing to pay for their Buyer Broker fees and paying $X to purchase, the Buyer may have to terminate, due to third party disagreement of the agents]. If the offer is accepted with a purchase price of $X, and the agents can’t settle on a number for cooperative compensation, Buyer may find themselves needing to terminate the transaction because they lack the proper funds to purchase and also compensate the broker. Ultimately that would be a transaction that fails through the third-party disagreement of the brokers, through no fault of the Buyer or Seller, and the potential ensuing dispute and potential OREA investigations would not be positive experiences for the brokers.
The total of 4(g)+4(f) cannot be greater than the value within the Buyer representation agreement without violating terms of the Settlement and likely violating rules on the MLS.