Qingpu District People's Court has ordered a home buyer and the property's former owner to each pay a real estate agency 15,000 yuan ($2,437) after they went behind the agency's back to avoid paying it a commission, the court said Sunday.
The agency, which was not identified, sued each of the two men for 17,000 yuan after it learned they had closed a 1.79 million-yuan deal for an apartment in Qingpu district that it had helped broker, according to a court press release.
The agency got involved with the defendants in May 2012 when the buyer, surnamed Li, hired it to help him buy an apartment in Qingpu district. One of its agents showed Li an apartment owned by a man surnamed Chen, and the pair reached to an agreement over the price.
Li and Chen both signed a contract in which they agreed to each pay the agency a commission amounting to 1 percent of the apartment's price.
However, the parties agreed to terminate the deal after Li couldn't secure a mortgage to buy the home.
It remains unclear if Li actually had problems obtaining a loan or simply wanted to avoid paying the agency its commission.
He argued in court that he bought Chen's apartment through another agency, where he had a friend who helped him with his loan problem.
The court ruled that the pair should have paid the plaintiff its commission because it had introduced them and brokered most of the deal.
However, because the agency didn't complete the transaction, the court did not award it the entire 17,000 yuan that it demanded.
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