A broker cannot demand payment of the commission if he looks after prospective buyers who purchase the property at a later date at a lower price from another broker. This was decided by the Regional Court of Darmstadt (LG Darmstadt; 29 O 326/19). In the case at hand, an owner had entrusted a real estate agent with the sale of his property by contract until January 31, 2019. In this context, a viewing appointment was also held with prospective buyers.
However, the property was apparently too expensive for the prospective buyers at around 600,000 euros. The broker sought to talk to the sellers, but they still wanted around 600,000 euros for their property. This communicated the broker to the prospective buyers. About two weeks later, they wrote to the broker that they did not want another property inspection. They would know however very well that someone could precede them with the real estate purchase. Thus they refrained from their purchase intention.
The broker sent the sellers a list of several prospective buyers before his contract expired, which included the name of said prospective buyers. However, as of February 2019, the sellers hired a different brokerage firm. Later it turned out that the property had been sold to the said prospective buyers through the new broker, for 535,000 euros. The first broker then went to court and demanded the commission, around 5.95 percent of the purchase price, from the prospective buyers. Unjustly as the LG Darmstadt found. One of the reasons for this was that the prospective buyers or purchasers had to pay a much lower purchase price to the second broker.
Source: rv.hessenrecht.hessen.de
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