What to Do When an Investor Refuses to Pay Your Sourcing Fee

When Trust Isn't Enough

You can build what feels like a genuinely good relationship with an investor client. They say the right things. They do the right things, at the right time. And then, one day, they don't.

It's one of the harder lessons in property sourcing: a great working relationship is not the same as a protected fee.

The Investor Who Signed Everything, Then Walked

Picture the deal that took weeks to find. You assessed it properly. You negotiated the terms. You packaged it and monitored it through to completion. Your investor client agreed to pay your fee. They even signed your NDA.

Then they walked away with the deal and refused to pay.

An NDA Protects Information. Not Your Fee

An NDA does one job: it stops confidential information being shared or used outside the relationship. That matters, but it was never designed to guarantee you get paid. If your investor decides not to pay, an NDA gives you nothing to stand on.

No Fee, No Cashflow, No Business

Cashflow is one of the most important things in any business. Without getting paid when you're owed, there is no business, just a disaster waiting to happen. The good news is that this is largely preventable, and if it ever does come to taking action, the law and the courts will be on your side, provided you have the right document in place.

The Document That Actually Protects You

That document is the agreement you use to secure your investor client, and it needs to be a proper Terms of Business Agreement. Not an NDA. An NDA alone is nowhere near good enough.

What a Quality Terms of Business Agreement Should Include:

• Clear payment terms: when you're paid, how much, and the status of each payment

• Defined scope: what the client can expect from you, and what you expect from them

• Limitation of liability: set your own limits, because the courts won't do it for you if it isn't written in

• Cancellation terms: how and when either party can cancel, and the notice required

• Indemnification: how each party would compensate the other if something goes wrong

• Confidentiality: protection for your business data, separate from payment protection

• Force majeure: cover for extreme or unavoidable events outside anyone's control

• Governing law: the specific regional or national jurisdiction that applies

• Signature before work starts: the client signs before you do a single hour of work on their behalf

For the full breakdown of what makes an agreement watertight, including the specific clauses that leave you exposed to unlimited liability if they're missing, see our complete guide to Terms of Business Agreements.

Fair From the Start

A good agreement should be clear, easy to read and fair. No hidden fees. No charging a fee as "refundable" when it isn't. And if you take referral fees, even as a reduced cost on another service rather than cash, that needs to be declared.

The peace of mind a quality agreement gives you can be the difference between sleeping well and lying awake waiting for a fee that may never land.

Protecting Your Sourcing Fee as a Property Sourcing Agent

Every property sourcing agent works from an agreement of some kind with their investor clients. The difference between one that protects you and one that doesn't usually comes down to whether it was built as a proper Terms of Business Agreement or cobbled together from a template never designed for sourcing work.

NAPSA's Documents and Contracts Pack for Property Sourcers gives members ready-made agreements covering payment terms, scope, liability, cancellation and everything above, so you're not drafting this from scratch or finding out what's missing the hard way.

Only missing some documents? No problem, you can purchase individual documents, such as our custom Terms of Business Agreement from our Document Shop - each template includes video guidance to walk you through how to use and when.

Members also have access to a cashflow spreadsheet to help track fees owed and due, alongside the wider training in NAPSA's Complete Setup to Sourcing Success Programme for agents building this part of their business properly from day one.