Referral Agreement (Broker-to-Broker) — Louisiana Edition Template

Referral fees are a core revenue stream in real estate — but they are legal only when paid between licensed brokers. Every state's license law prohibits paying referral fees to unlicensed persons, and in transactions involving a federally related mortgage loan, RESPA Section 8 (12 U.S.C. § 2607) prohibits kickbacks and unearned fee-splitting for settlement-service referrals — with an exemption at 12 U.S.C. § 2607(c) that permits cooperative brokerage and referral arrangements between licensed real estate agents and brokers. The practical rule: broker-to-broker referral fees are fine; anything else needs scrutiny. And because a referral fee is a commission-sharing promise, the statute of frauds in most states means an unwritten referral deal is an unenforceable handshake.

This 4-page Referral Agreement locks the arrangement down in writing: identification of referring broker and receiving broker (with license numbers and states), the referred client's identity and the scope of the referral (buy-side, sell-side, or both; geographic area; property types), the referral fee as a percentage of the receiving side's gross commission (or a flat amount), when the fee is earned and payable (at closing, out of escrowed commission), treatment of multiple transactions by the same referred client during a defined capture period, a no-brokerage-services acknowledgment by the referring broker in the destination transaction, status updates, and governing law.

The included notes cover interstate referrals (fee must generally be paid broker-to-broker through the licensee's own broker), states with specific referral disclosure requirements to clients, and the RESPA boundaries for anything touching settlement services beyond brokerage. Template for drafting purposes — not legal advice.

About this Louisiana Edition: Louisiana is the only civil-law jurisdiction in the library, and every template was redrafted in its vocabulary — immovable property, parishes, the act of sale, and the Louisiana Civil Code rather than common-law contract doctrine. Agency terms follow the Louisiana real estate agency disclosure statutes (La. R.S. 9:3891 et seq.), which require the Commission's agency disclosure pamphlet and permit dual agency only with written informed consent from both the buyer and the seller, so the dual agency consent here is a true consent instrument. The seller disclosure edition is built around the Louisiana Residential Property Disclosure Act (La. R.S. 9:3196 et seq.) and the Commission's mandated property disclosure document, the listing and buyer agreements carry the written-agreement and definite-term requirements enforced by the Louisiana Real Estate Commission, the independent-contractor agreement reflects sponsoring-broker supervision under the Louisiana Real Estate License Law, and each instrument recites the Louisiana Uniform Electronic Transactions Act and the civil-law writing requirement for transfers of immovable property. Not legal advice; have a Louisiana-licensed attorney review before use.