Another was an attorney who told a horror story that got El Jefe to snort ice tea through his nose and exclaim to the entire room, "Holy S***, does E&O (malpractice insurance) cover this?" To be fair, El Jefe only said what the rest of us were thinking.
And by the way, the answer is No. If a seller independently counters to two buyers and both buyers accept the counter offer, the seller has sold the house twice and there will inevitably be a lawsuit as one buyer will be seriously unhappy (the agent used the wrong form and not the form that would have covered this--glad it wasn't an agent under my brokerage).
Last week I heard this attorney speak again. He brought up this same case: the seller counter-offered two individual buyers and they both accepted the terms. Hence, the house was legally sold twice. However, this time I had the oportunity to ask how this case came out.
It turns out I was wrong. One buyer was compensated by the E&O insurance (even at the meeting last week we were all astonished E&O covered this) more than $200,000 to remedy the situation. The "losing" buyer who did not get the house bought another property. This time they had a HUGE down payment.
Moral of the story if you are a selling agent: make sure you use the right "Multiple Counter Offer" form, otherwise your broker will be walking your license back to the state pretty quickly. If you are the broker, your E&O will probably triple and your deductable will be astronomical.
I called El Jefe after this meeting to let him know how this ended. We joked a bit and he asked if I was the agent who made the mistake. "Yea, because that's what you taught me," I replied.
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