We’ve heard about lender’s “junk fees”, but how about a Realtor’s add-on fees? Over the past decade there has been a growing trend to add-on to the brokerage fee a transaction fee, or a compliance fee.  The amount of this fee varies from brokerage to brokerage and Realtor to Realtor (some brokers and Realtors do not charge this fee).

At my current brokerage, I pay $300 per closed escrow as a Transaction Coordination Fee. This pays for the Transaction Coordinator (paperwork shuffler).  However, at close of escrow my clients do receive their escrow and closing "paperwork" on a CD.  And during the escrow process, my escrow information is on-line and accessible 24 hours a day. 

Now a federal appellate court has weighed in with a decision involving a realty firm's $149 mandatory add-on fee, and a home buyer who filed suit to challenge it. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court's denial of class action standing in the suit by Vicki B. Busby of Jefferson, Ala. The class action is intended to cover all consumers forced to pay what the brokerage firm termed its “ABC” fee — an administrative brokerage commission.