What Happens When the Listing Agent Dies... in the Middle of a Transaction?

In our last closing, our colleague, the listing agent went for a minor surgery and... did not come back! As the selling agents, we were left wondering for days who would take over and finish the transaction. We had sent signed documents via email that could not be retrieved for days. We understand the broker of record is actually the responsible party, but I wonder, what would happen when the broker is the listing agent... and he dies in the middle of the transaction, who would take over then?

The fact is that we all will go sometime, and even though, we do not like to think about it, we must have a system in place that could allow somebody else to step in and take over, at least on the business part. An assistant is good, but when dealing with clients, (like in our case) there apparently were conversations between the seller and her Realtor that altered the transaction. Seller implied a promise from his dead Realtor to her, that his broker had to actually pay for. A promise of free rent for 15 days! no, there was nothing in writing about that. But there was no way to verify that.

Stop and think for a minute... If you die right now... could someone sit on your desk and know what were you doing? What were you thinking? Do you have your passwords written somewhere where a trusted person can have access to them if needed? If there is a deadline (no point intended,) that will go unnoticed and because of that your client could be harmed?

As I write this post, I can think of the myriad of passwords that I use for almost everything, my computer actually reminds me of some of them, which could be helpful for someone taking over my desk. They will need a passord to get into my computer! But the fact is, it will take weeks for another person to know where and where things are in my little desk. and that is only for my business life! Yikes, I now remember that I do have a personal life that includes bank accounts, social security numbers and of course more passwords.

If you have a system that could help in a situation like this one, I really would like to know, you would think that a husband and wife team would have an advantage, yes we do, but I think it needs to be more organized, and maybe one day, do something similar to a fire drill: Honey, I just died! what would you do? Show me!

I believe that when we are born, we are given a secret number that is tattooed somewhere in each one of us, and the almighty plays a big Bingo Machine up there, that when it spits our number out! we just drop dead. Period, no request, no permission granted, nothing. By the way, how is your business today?