Hidden Dangers of Sloppy Contracts in Real Estate

I think if you think about too like the changes after August 17th. Right. So like now a lot of times commission is wrote into the offer and you're presenting that at the same time. So you're presenting like the buyer agent is requesting this for a fee. But here's the boatload of mistakes that we have to correct in their offer. Right. Like, that just doesn't bode well. I think when you're trying to present that to a seller, I think we need to keep that in mind, you know, as well. Welcome to the Leading Lane podcast for Real Estate Pros by Real Estate Pros with your hosts, Ashley Frederick and Steven Burch. If you're looking for an honest, authentic and raw perspective, you found it. Welcome everyone back to the Leading Lane podcast. We are thankful to have you on listening today. And today we thought we would talk a little bit about contracts, but also what happens when they are poorly written or delivered to you in a quote unquote sloppy manner. And just that what that does for us as realtors in the industry, but also how that could affect your offer, could affect you as the agent. Those types of things. Yeah, I think like very early on in my career it was kind of funny because we used to write all these clauses and everything. And then as, as we advanced and as I learned more, our new contracts have a lot of checkboxes. And when we moved to those, I was like, why are we moving? Like, I hate it. Right? Like it doesn't have my clause in there. It doesn't have this. Well, the attorney at the time, he basically said checkboxes are the way to keep you out of lawsuits or help you keep out of lawsuits, the more you write, the more you are actually putting yourself at a risk. And the more that we can put checkboxes and clean it up to where less margin of error for interpretation, the better for you. And I think the big thing here is like, that was like a big aha for me of understanding that sometimes the way that we write things and put different clauses in there, it leaves a lot of room for error, for interpretation from the other agent to that seller to that buyer. And it just makes things sloppy. And you were sharing a scenario to where like you actually had a checkbox and the. The other side did not check the correct box. Tell me about that. How did that go? Yeah, not a checkbox, but they can strike who's. Who's paying for a well water septic test. And if you don't strike anything, the default is that the buyer is paying for the well, water septic test. And so we happened to an agent in my office and right. Reached out to the other agent, like, hey, I haven't seen that well water test scheduled for your buyer. She responded, it's the seller's responsibility. And then it was like, check out the offer. It reads buyer's responsibility. And then that agent responded with, I'm already paying a referral on this transaction, so not willing to pay anything more. Why don't you see if your sellers will take care of that? But the contract says. Right. And I think that too, like, there is a part of, you know, owning your mistakes. So if you as the realtor, like, literally made that mistake, you know, I can also see in some situations where someone would have said, you know, the buyer obviously didn't read through everything that they signed either because it's a signed contract. So, I mean, that gets really mucky, if you will. I mean, and if I were the agent and you knew that that was your buyer's intentions was to have the seller pay for it. I mean, I think some of these situations, that's where you have to eat the cost and say, like, I messed up on that. Regardless of whether or not there's a referral in there or not, that has nothing to do with if you make a mistake in the transaction. So I think sometimes that just goes back to show people's character, if you will, as far as as that. I mean, they were able to come to an agreement and. Right. There's some things that it's not worth making a big deal out of. But what I always say in those situations is, you know, I think it can make realtors, like, we already have a bad name from a lot of people anyway. And so if we're continuing to deliver these contracts that are poorly written, you know, I had one that, like, names were missing, things were misspelled. It was the wrong city, you know, and me, like, having to present that to my seller and then being like, well, we're going to have to counter to address these five errors, like, I. That can't make them feel good about, you know, moving forward. And the unfortunate thing with that, too, is I think it can reflect the buyer when in all reality, it didn't necessarily have anything to do with the buyer. So I think, you know, agents really need to slow down. I try to preach that in my office, slowing down and double checking. And I think that especially with everything online, right. Like, there's the filling everything out on virtual forms. It was a little bit different, I think, when you Actually like we're writing them out like you said. Right. Because physically doing it, a lot of this stuff is auto filled. It's on us to double check them. One tip I gave one of our newer agents which he said helped him catch an error. The second time he made an error, I told him some tips was to read the contract backwards. So start at the end and then like go to the first, you know, checkbox. Was that supposed to be checked how many days or whatnot. So instead of what your mind is used to and like reading through fastly, the way that we know that they go is to actually interrupt your brain and go backwards. And he said when he did that he found two mistakes before he sent it out. And something that when I first started that my, my grandmother, which was my broker made made me do is go through. You know that we are a firm believer in estimated costs for both the buyer and the seller. And so every time that there was a line item of cost on the contract, making sure that that's exactly the line item that we have on the estimate of cost. So that way we made sure that if we, you know, missed disclosing the, the amount of a home warranty for the buyer or for the seller, it doesn't matter. Right. Like we're able to see that, hey, there's money there that needs to be on my estimated cost and is it truly there so that the, the buyer or seller understands what they're paying for? So I think it's just, yeah, it is slowing down and it's figuring out like it's redundant. Like it. Right. Like to me that the contract is pretty much the same over and over and over again. There's some terms so it's easy to glaze over it. But this is contracts, these are not just right, like court of law. Right. Like this is a huge purchase. And so if we're not taking it seriously, we're not slowing down. Like how do we expect others to take us seriously and respect our, our industry? And I always preach to our agents, like if you're gonna have to go in front of a judge in a court of law and explain your, you could even get your buyer's name spelled correctly. Like what do you think? What else they're going to start tearing you apart. Like it's going to be super easy. It's a whole different world, the court of law for people to tear you apart than what is happening in the real world. Right. So I think if you think about too like the changes after August 17th. Right. So like now, a lot of times commission is wrote into the offer and you're presenting that at the same time. So you're presenting like the buyer agent is requesting this for a fee. But here's the boatload of mistakes that we have to correct in their offer, right? Like, that just doesn't bode well, I think when you're trying to present that to a seller, I think we need to keep that in mind, you know, as well, and I think, you know, you make a good point about the home warranty. So we have a specific addendum. That's an addendum A, I would say, I don't know. The fair majority of realtors don't use it. We make it a requirement in our office. And I knew an agent had moved over from another office and they, they didn't use it. And we require it now. And she actually said something to me last week, but she's so glad that we require it, because reason I require it is that there are things we want to make sure that we offered to a buyer as well, one of them being a home warranty. So if you don't use the addendum A, is there anywhere stating that you offer them a home warranty where on this one they have to choose accept or decline? The other really big thing in our addendum A is a closing cost credit. So same thing, like, did we talk to them about a closing cost credit? And if, if there's no documentation to have proof that they signed off on that, that you had these discussions. Same thing when you go to a court of law, like, what have happened? Someone said, well, I didn't know that I could have asked for, you know, the 3, 500 in closing costs. And well, you're, you're protecting yourself and you're protecting your client. Right? Like, if you're truly working in the best interest, and this is a big hot topic in, in our market is yes, the, the home warranty. But what about that, this sewer, you know, inspection. What about a roof inspection? And, you know, there's so many. We're in a sue happy world. And so what happens if the roof actually, you know, has a leak at the top three months after and they take you to court and they say, well, you never offered me to do a full roof inspection. And you know, like, how do you cover your ass that you truly did your due diligence and worked in your the best interest? And it was actually the buyer that said no, but you need that documented properly in a tidbit on the Home warranty aspect of thing. I can't think of the company, maybe it's American Preferred, but one of the home warranty companies actually have it to where regardless if you sell the home warranty package to the buyer or not, if as long as you have them sign their addendum or their disclosure and acknowledging that they you presented it to them, if there's an E and O insurance claim, they will actually cover the E and O insurance claim for you because you had them sign said addendum. So there's additional coverages with these third party vendors that you work with to be able to help protect you in the future against those lawsuits. Suits, buyer or seller. Yeah, I think that it's just like I get that we're all busy or whatnot, but at the end of the day I think we have to remember that there's a whole nother week. We do live in a sue happy world. I don't know if you saw that the Delta because you know the flying goes over so well lately. But the plane that flipped over, right, which thank God everyone is alive, right? Right. I think that yesterday like Delta offered everyone $30,000. And then I read the comments and like everyone was like not enough. Sue them, sue them, sue them, sue them. Like and it just to me was like, I mean like they're okay. Like everyone lived like can't we be happy that they offered you 30,000? And you know, it was just again all it made me think is like why do we have to turn it into like suing someone? And granted I wasn't on the plane, I can't say what I would do or what I would feel but again that's the automatic response for, for everyone. And I would my pants is what I would do. That's exactly what I would do if that blame if that happened and I was on it. My God, I would. Yeah, I probably shouldn't have watched some of those videos like the people literally just like hanging upside down. I, I but I there have been some like funny you know, like social media things just about like people like they're literally like trying to puller as tight as they can or whatnot. Which is I normally have mine pretty loosely just because I always have like a big puppy coat on and the same thing. Although I did think that to myself everyone laughs at me for like traveling in my like negative 40 degree coat. But in that situation would have paid off well. But props to those flight attendants for that video. I mean like calm as cucumbers. Like I just can't imagine that, but I think that's, you know, again, and it goes back to these estimate of costs. What I really appreciate you talking about that is I know that not a lot of people do that with either their sellers or their buyers. And it goes back to being like, we're trying to show them that we're the professional, that we're the ones that are trying to help them. So, like, we should just automatically be providing them. Like, here's what your house is going to sell for, here's the breakdown, including your mortgage, et cetera. This is the check that you should be expecting on the day of closing. And I know it's not in that market now, but if you were to rewind, I think you could relate maybe eight years ago. And we did those and then it was like, oh, you owe $10,000 on the day of closing. Like, I was always able to have those conversations so that we were fully prepared or we could try to adjust or we knew that where, where that was going to come from. But I also remember there were like numerous sellers that had no idea till the day before closing that they owed like $10,000. And that never went well. But I think then for buyers, you know, you and I talk about that, a lot of people don't do that. Like, we want them to know from the beginning what they think they're going to come, you know, with versus you're a week from closing and the bank sends them their final number and they don't have it right. You know, so I think it goes back to we're not just paper pushers and put signs in the ground, although that's what some people think. And some people, that's all they post about, right? There's so, so, so much more that goes into that. And I think we really need to focus on slowing down to make sure that we actually understand the terms. You know, I was actually having a really good conversation with someone about condos. The condos are very different. I mean, like, they are their own unique little piece of real estate. I had an agent write an offer on one of mine, not on a condo offer, which that's its own array of issues. So obviously I advised them to write on a condo offer because condo offer addresses, the hoas, the reserves, the condo association minutes, all those types of things, right? And I was telling another agent about that, and she had said that when she, you know, got into real estate, her broker didn't know anything about condos, so just had her call another broker. And thankfully I knew that Situation. Like, I bet that broker helped you. Like that's the other thing is if you don't know, like just ask someone. Like we're all supposed to help everyone. So you're not familiar with that. And if your broker is not willing to help you, I bet you the listing agent would be willing to help you if it means they get a solid offer on their property. Or it's just a teachable moment that when I started out in real estate, I didn't know how to fill out a condo doc. Right. I had to get help because I didn't know what those terms meant. Sure. And you know, I think you make a great point about like just asking for help. And you know, I, I think a lot of times we talk about this a lot about how agents sometimes put their egos into the transaction. And you know, I get that we're all busy and I, I get super frustrated when somebody says, well, I'm busy, I'm out showing right now, so I'll have to do that later. Right. Or, you know, can you just do it? Or. It's not that big of a deal. Very passive. No, like time is of the essence and if there's mistakes, if we're, you know, we're, we're trying to, to work on this. Like, I get that you are busy, but just because you're busy does not mean I'm not busy. But let's figure it out together. I would be way more apt to help you if you were like, hey, I hear you, I made the mistake. Right. Or whatever is happening. I do have showings lineup. Do you mind helping me? Or you know, I. My next time that I have slotted is going to be five o' clock tonight. Is that okay? I think your approach and your delivery on how you do those conversations can change the whole trajectory of how the transaction journey is going to be. It doesn't need to be a pissing match or an ego back and forth. Like, have the conversation, it's okay. But also don't make it seem that you're busier than I am or that I'm going to be your freaking assistant. Like, no. Yeah, I think that that is like super frustrating to me. Like when people will say, like, well, I'm just busy the rest of the day and like, I am also busy, but I will make time, you know, when. And I think that you and I talked about it a little bit too. But that's where text messages can be like easily misconstrued, you know. So if it is a situation Maybe you've gotten to that point of it. Then I'd pick up the phone and be like, hey, I'm literally on the road for the next three hours. Like, I don't have access to the computer. I'm not gonna do this while I'm driving. Is it okay I get it to you at 5? Or can you draft a notice for me? Or something like that? And I think that if you take it from that approach of just being upfront or letting them know, like, hey, I can't help you right now, versus ignoring it, or again, trying to be like, I'm busier than you are. Which it just. I think that goes back to real estate in general, right? Like, it doesn't need to be so cutthroat. Like, if we could all work as a collaboration, these transactions would go much smoother if we kind of removed some egos. Like, right. We're all trying to get to the same finish line. So, you know, it's. It's like those stories that you love when someone is, like, just about to win the race and someone falls and then, like, the person behind them, instead of being like, I'm just going to skip that person and finish, they'll pick them up and take them with you. Like, that's the reality of what we should be trying to do. Right? I mean, and that analogy there is no different than, you know, when we're talking about when not hearing from an agent and we're coming up on deadlines, like, instead of just letting them flounder and, you know, just assume that they know what they're talking about. Ask like, hey, we're coming up on a deadline and I haven't seen anything scheduled yet for that home inspection or whatever it's going to be. You know, what's going on. And in that scenario that you were sharing with me, like, actually was because they miswrote something in the offer. And so therefore, it would have been a whole nother bag of worms that you're going to unpack if you just let it sit there. And I think we have to remember, too, that, like, we're not perfect, right? So, like, if we can. Right? So I. I reached out to an agent who thought it was weird that the inspection hadn't been done yet. Well, here they thought it was a deadline that started, like, after a home got an offer on it, and it wasn't drafted that way. But I wasn't malicious about it. I was like, oh, too bad you made the mistake. Like, I was just like, why? It didn't seem right to me. So I wanted to make sure that I reached out to, like, if you were on the receiving end of that, wouldn't you take that much more like, oh my gosh, I'm so help. I'm so glad that she reached out. I feel like that would, like, that changes the trajectory of that, of that transaction. Because trying to be helpful or whatnot versus, like, you know, it's the day after and you're like, so you missed your inspection deadline. I mean, like, too bad, so sad. Like that just right, like, that will derail a transaction real fast. I mean, you can have a buyer that gets upset. You know, it's just same thing. But, like, if I missed one, you know, we have checks and balances in place, but it's not to say that we don't make mistakes. Like, it'd be great if the other agent was like, hey, not liking you to miss the deadline. Like, did something happen? Like, so much easier than creating this, you know? And I get, you know, people be like, well, I'm working for the seller, so I'm not going to tell them that they're missing their deadline. Like, yes and no. I can understand where you're trying to say, like, oh, they don't have a chance. But if at the end of the day, missing that deadline makes them want to default or back out of the transaction, or now it becomes, you know, something else comes up in the transaction, and now the buyer's like, well, nope, I'm not. I'm gonna stand my ground on this. Because you stood your ground on that. Like, is that actually working in your seller's best interest? And that's exactly where I was gonna go with that too. Like, you're working in the seller's best, best interest. And just because, you know, there's a deadline and you know it, like, being, you know, vindictive about it is not in anybody's best interest other than your own, right? Like, you got over on somebody else. Like, your. Your job, in my opinion, is to make that process and that journey to the closing table as smooth as you possibly can without these hurdles and disruptions. And you are actually creating additional disruptions throughout the transaction by not saying something. I mean, we've heard the saying over and over again. If you see something, say something that simple, like, wherever it is in the. In the transaction and whoever's fault it is, even if it is something of your own fault, right? Like bringing it to the table, taking ownership of saying, man, I made a mistake. I'm here to Be able to take ownership in this and accountability. I would like to figure out how to make this a better transaction to move forward. And you know what? Sometimes the cost of business is you having to come out of pocket, regardless if you're paying for a referral or regardless of however you got that buyer or seller. That's part of being an independent contractor. You have to maybe pull some money out of your pocket to put the transaction together to keep everybody happy. And part of it, man, it's a write off. Well, it is. And it's always like, right. It's a write off that you'll probably never have again because you learn from your mistake. I always tell my water softener story that was like two years in the business, and the seller told me that it was owned. So I wrote, you know, owned, if you will, and that's what the offer said was owned. And then the buyer, like, I don't know, 60 days after closing, like, had Colgan stop. Lo and behold, it was not owned, it was leased. You know, know. And at that point in time, like, it was like a 90 year old seller. And I was like, I. I'm not going back. Like, they obviously thought that that was the case. And I paid for a water softener that the new buyer could own because it was the right thing to do and. Right. But it's a story that I tell all my agents. Like, when I see them writing offers and then maybe doesn't dictate owned lease, I'm like, do you have proof that it's leased? Do you have proof that it's owned? Like, what is that? Right. Because paid for a $900 water softener one time and I don't want anybody else to have to worry about that. So. So I think that's just where, like, owning your mistakes gets you so much farther, you know, And I think that even both sides, like, that buyer was probably like, wow, like, you know, she could have gone back to the seller. She could have done this. It was just like, nope, we'll take care of it and keep everybody happy and move on. Do you know how many garage door remotes. Yeah. I've purchased in my career? Literally, I. Literally. That's hilarious that you say that because I made that part of our closing checklist like two weeks ago because someone, like, took it with them when they moved. And then this buyer freaked out. And it's this kind of silly in a sense, just because they're like $20 at the, at the hardware store. And then like everyone programs them to their Car anyway. But yes, I have bought so many garage door openers. But yes, it's now on our closing checklist. So if you don't have a closing checklist, put that on there and then it will help deter that, you know, they'll find them where they are. Like, mine was the weirdest situation last week. There was a garage door opener there and I could not get it to work for the life of me. But it would hum. It's like, hum, hum, hum, hum, hum. So I was like, okay, well, obviously the batteries aren't dead. Called the seller. He's a little bit older guy. Well, here's the other one was in his car and they had moved away. So he was shipping it to me. And he called me the next morning and he's like, I found. Thought about it in the middle of my sleep. I was like, okay, what? He's like, they're locked. And I was like, what? We can lock garage door openers. Which I had no idea. So he's like, I don't know how to do it, but they're locked. I don't remember how I did it. So anyway, note to others. I went to the house. There's literally just a little button, like right when you push the button to open it, there's a button next to it that you move over to put locked or unlocked. So he was saying that, like, a neighbor must have had the same garage door opener so it would like open his Sony. And I was like, oh, it's just a simple button to unlock it. And we had two working garage door remotes for closing. I remember going, and this is a long time ago, the difference between garage door opener versus garage door remotes. And like, we got down to like the nitty gritty. And again, this goes back to that interpretation, right? And I was like, no, there's the freaking, like remotes there. No, there was no garage door opener. For whatever reason, we had a remote, but there was no opener in the actual garage to get the garage door open. I was like, oh, my gosh. Like, something so simple caused so much chaos and understanding. And then there went my checklist. It now is garage door opener plus garage door remotes. And then now it got down into, like, how many remotes are there really that we're going to be transferring over? Because this gets nitty gritty. And I, you know, if there's three garage stalls, like, people think that they should have one for each, right? But it very well could be just one. I know it's so minute, but that Those are the types of things that snowball and depending on people remember at. The closing table, that's all they remember. They don't remember the rest of the transaction. They remember that there was not a garage door opener for the them. They were, you know, freaking mad about it. But you know, going back to if, you know, what if in that transaction, you know, we had all of the hiccups and you know, the misspelling of the names and then, you know, the wrong contracts, wrong addendums, wrong, you know, checkboxes, and then we get down into the not having the actual remotes. Like, those are the things that, like, they're going to remember, not all of the other things that you're, you're trying to save on the transaction on the other side to where you could have saved the day and been the hero on every single one of those different scenarios throughout that contract. And the buyer probably, or the seller probably didn't even need to know. And unless you made it a big deal. So, yeah, it's funny how sometimes, like, I want to call it sloppy, like agents can be sloppy and just throw everything out there and expect, you know, the stuff to stick. And that's not truly what needs to happen. We need to protect, I think the. Other part of that, and you mentioned it kind of with your clauses or whatnot, but I have seen some very strange clauses as of recent where, like, people just like made up like, if this doesn't happen, like, this happens. And I was like, I mean, like, we can't practice law. So, like, plus it was something like, if this doesn't happen after closing. And I was like, I don't know, the closing is like the trend. We are removed as after closing. So I think it's, you know, a matter of remembering that, like, if you really want something that is not normal, like, you should probably consult a legal advisor because that's not for us to make up legal terms because then when it falls apart and you end up in court, like there's a whole nother situation. And I mean, we, we've seen that, right? Like, I mean, people now saying, you know, you don't have the, the means to practice law and we're not attorneys, like, totally get that. But to where you know, printing out something in then them saying, oh, well, that is you acting as law, like everything is an up for interpretation. I think that's a lot of things that, where people miss is that like, it doesn't matter if you did something out of ill intent or not or, you know, you're trying to help somebody or not. Like, you can be sued for literally anything. And, like, opening up that suit is going to cost you so much money to defend yourself. And so don't even add additional trauma to the table and allow others to, you know, find reasons to go after you. Like, we don't. We don't want that at all. So don't overstep your balance. You're not the attorney here. Seek legal advice, um, and make sure that you're doing things ethically and legally and thought out and slow the freaking down. Right. And I think the other big thing is just, you know, like, asking questions. Because a lot of times when I reach out to other agents, they just don't know. Like, no one's told them, no one's instructed them. And I mean, sure, I might be 13 years in, but I still don't know everything. But I know a fair amount of the basics. And when, like, you're. You're missing a, like a major basic, like, feeling pretty confident that how you wrote that isn't what you meant it. And, you know, same thing. And we talked about this at Inman. A lot of agents, you know, when you try to correct them, get extremely defensive, and there's just no room for that. I feel like in a transaction, like, I remember when I first started and some of that, I think I was defensive just because people were like, you're young and you shouldn't be in real estate. So I think of my defensiveness came from that. Um, but also, like, when I knew I was right, like, I was going to be like, no. Like, this is. This is exactly how it reads. And sometimes, you know, you. You teach a broker, like, oh, I've been doing it wrong for 20 years. Right. So instead of necessarily getting defensive, just being like, can I help you understand it? Can I help you see how I see it? This is how I interpret it. Maybe you want to talk to your broker. Hey, we have a legal hotline. Like, if you don't like what I have to say, maybe call the legal hotline. But instead of just being so defensive, like, just understand that some people are trying to truly, like, help you learn something, that maybe you were taught incorrectly. Yeah. Check the ego at the door. Right? Yeah. And. And I think, like, when you said that you were defensive, correct me if I'm wrong, you weren't defensive. And then lash out to the other agent. You were defensive for yourself. And then try to figure it out. Right. Like, so I think that there's a difference of the reaction that you have, you know, when you become defensive instead of reacting to the other side, look at the mirror first and then be like, all right, how can I, how can I learn from this opportunity? How can I move forward from it to be better for the next time so I don't make this mistake? It, it does not need to be a. And one thing with that we talked about was sometimes, like, there's, I can think of like two agents that like, anytime something goes south in a transaction, like, I can anticipate that phone call and I can anticipate the tone and it's going to be. Everything's a show and offers going to fall apart. And like, really it's, we're talking about like a thousand dollar issue or something like that, you know, So a lot of times I'll, I'll just try to be like, like, okay, like maybe we could calm down or maybe we should just pause for a little bit. I remember I had one agent that was like screaming at me and I was like, okay, so I'm going to hang up now. It's not to be disrespectful, but I will talk to you when you can talk to me in a calm voice. But one point that Keith Robinson made was literally asking the question, are you okay? Like, asking the other agent when they're that upset and they're just screaming and whatever, because I think that's a, it's a hard pause, like for them to be like, why, why would you say that? This maybe isn't the best way to handle the situation. And you know, one time I, I asked a, an agent that, and I think like, her, her brother had just been hospitalized, right? So here, like, I'm sure that those reactions came off because she was in, you know, another mood of that. So I think that we, you know, if we can remember that there, we don't always know what's going on on the other side. So if we can just ask, like, is everything okay? Like, this isn't a normal reaction. Should we talk later? Yeah. And I don't know about you, but if somebody comes at me like that, I, I may be a little stubborn and I'm. That ain't happening. Let's end that conversation really quickly. You're not going to get anywhere with me. Right? Like, I'm the last one that you wanted to, to do all that. I mean, I remember that I had a seller that, that did that to me and it was, it was like over a home warranty. It was the craziest thing. But I Remember, like, holding the, like, the phone, like, away from my ear because he was screaming. And. And I remember like, okay, well, so I'm gonna let you go now. And I was like, we'll talk tomorrow when you're more calm. And he kept on screaming. And I was like. And I remember Ben in the background was like, did you just hang up on them? And I was like. I mean, I let them know that I was letting them go, but I was like, that is not okay, and I will not stand for that. And then I think the next day, he brought flowers to the office to apologize. We also have to know, like, it's okay. We don't have to allow ourselves to be treated like that. You know, if you have a client or another agent that's like that, I mean, that's where either you contact your broker to help you step in or put a hard pause on that, because nobody deserves to have that type of interaction. One of the latest things on the iPhone that I freaking love. And I'm sure the Android. I wouldn't know, but anyway. But you know, like, when things escalate like that, there's a nice little record button now. And so, like, and it says, ding, this call is being recorded, right? Like, I don't think I have that option. Like, I want the other agent or whoever's yelling at me to hear that I'm gonna record your ass to make sure that you know that, like, I'm gonna hold you accountable for speaking to me that way. Like, not okay. And all of our calls at the office are recorded anyway. It's just the personal cell phone. So, like, there's a little tip that I. I teach my agents and my clients, like, there's a record button. And I guarantee you that once that happens and they hear that, their tone is going to change tremendously because they're not going to want to be recorded. So I'm not an attorney, but check the laws and everything else of what you're going to use that with. But it's for your own personal use. But, yeah, so into the. I mean, so to wrap it up, really, the, The. The bullet points here is be a good human, right? Like, ask questions, making sure that you're not being vindictive here. Making sure. Yeah. See something, take your time, understand your contract. Like, basic. Like, I. I say it's basic stuff in this industry, but apparently it's not. So continue to spread the. The goodness out there. And as always, if you guys have any sort of topics or would like to be a guest on our podcast, please reach out to us and tune in next time. If you've enjoyed today's episode, please like subscribe and share with others. 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