Case Name: SHELDON GREENE & ASSOCIATES, INC., a Florida corporation, and Litwin Realty, Inc., a Florida corporation, Appellants, v. ROSINDA INVESTMENTS, N.V., a Netherlands Antilles corporation, and Harry Horn and Sala Horn, his wife, Appellees
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1985-08-13
Citations: 475 So. 2d 925
Docket Number: No. 84-857
Parties: SHELDON GREENE & ASSOCIATES, INC., a Florida corporation, and Litwin Realty, Inc., a Florida corporation, Appellants, v. ROSINDA INVESTMENTS, N.V., a Netherlands Antilles corporation, and Harry Horn and Sala Horn, his wife, Appellees.
Judges: Before HUBBART, NESBITT and DANIEL S. PEARSON, JJ.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 475
Pages: 925–932

Head Matter:
SHELDON GREENE & ASSOCIATES, INC., a Florida corporation, and Litwin Realty, Inc., a Florida corporation, Appellants, v. ROSINDA INVESTMENTS, N.V., a Netherlands Antilles corporation, and Harry Horn and Sala Horn, his wife, Appellees.
No. 84-857.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Third District.
Aug. 13, 1985.
Rehearing Denied Oct. 4, 1985.
Kline, Moore & Klein and Donald Klein, Miami Beach, for appellants.
Morton B. Zemel, North Miami Beach, Dubbin & Berkman and Andrew H. Mori-ber, Miami, for appellees.
Before HUBBART, NESBITT and DANIEL S. PEARSON, JJ.

Opinion:
DANIEL S. PEARSON, Judge.
Sheldon Greene & Associates, Inc. and Litwin Realty, Inc., real estate brokers, appeal from an adverse judgment entered after a non-jury trial in an action to recover brokerage commissions on the sale of a hotel property known as The Prince Arthur Apartments. We reverse with directions to enter judgment for the brokers.
Our task of deciding this case is made easier by the fact that the trial judge, as the fact-finder, announced that he believed the brokers' version of the pertinent events. That version was as follows.
The purchasers, Mr. and Mrs. Horn, visited Litwin Realty, Inc. to discuss investing in a hotel property. Mr. Pollock, Litwin's agent, introduced the Horns to Mr. Bastacky of Sheldon Greene & Associates, Inc., because that agency had a larger inventory of hotel properties. On two separate occasions, Pollock and Bastacky took the Horns to visit and inspect The Prince Arthur Apartments. The Horns' visits and inspections were done with the full knowledge and approval of the owner's resident manager. According to Bastacky, only when the Horns told him that they were not interested in purchasing the property and when he learned that the Horns had bought another hotel property did he stop communicating with the Horns. Within a year of being shown The Prince Arthur Apartments by Bastacky and Pollock, the Horns contacted an agent for Rosinda Investments, N.V., the owner of the apartments, and directly negotiated the purchase of the apartments. The Horns acquired the property in the name of a corporate entity of which they were half-owners, and it was conveyed by Rosinda to a trustee for the corporation. In sum, then, the brokers showed the Horns the property and had no further involvement in any negotiations only because the Horns misleadingly informed them that they had no interest in purchasing the property.
The trial judge erroneously believed that the brokers had to establish (which clearly and eoncededly they did not) that there were continuing negotiations between the seller and purchaser conducted by or through the brokers, which ultimated in the sale of the property. This failure, said the trial judge, was fatal to the brokers' claim.
The correct rule of law is not that stated by the trial judge; it is, instead, that a broker, to be considered the "procuring cause" of a sale, must have brought the purchaser and seller together and effected a sale through continuous negotiations inaugurated by him unless the seller and buyer intentionally exclude the broker and thereby vitiate the need for continuous negotiations. Plainly,
"[wjhen the broker has brought the prospective parties together, they cannot complain that the broker did not participate in negotiations when they have purposely excluded the broker from these negotiations by dealing with one another directly and in secret."
First Realty Cory. v. Standard Steel Treating Co., 268 So.2d 410, 413 (Fla. 4th DCA 1972).
See Bermil Corp. v. Sawyer, 353 So.2d 579 (Fla. 3d DCA 1977); Alcott v. Wagner & Becker, Inc., 328 So.2d 549 (Fla. 4th DCA 1976) (commission due where seller's property advertised by broker, prospective buyer reads ad and discovers seller is a friend, and consummates sale without broker); Mead Corp. v. Mason, 191 So.2d 592 (Fla. 3d DCA 1966), cert. denied, 200 So.2d 813 (Fla.1967) (commission due where broker showed buyer property twice, buyer and seller negotiated terms of sale without notifying broker, and agreed as part of purchase contract that no broker was involved). Thus, where the broker is excluded, the requirement of continuous negotiations is quite obviously dispensed with, and the broker is nonetheless deemed to be the "procuring cause" of the ensuing sale. See Realty Marts, Inc. v. Barlow, 312 So.2d 544 (Fla. 1st DCA 1975). Moreover, a bro.ker has done all that he is required to do and is entitled to a commission where he has shown the buyer the property but makes no further efforts because an initial purchase offer is rejected or the buyer expresses no interest in the property. See Crystal River Enterprises, Inc. v. Nasi, Inc., 418 So.2d 1038 (Fla. 5th DCA 1982); Gibbs v. Gibbs, 296 So.2d 613 (Fla. 1st DCA 1974). If the rule were otherwise:
"a crafty prospect could reject the contract submitted by the broker, go behind his back to the owner, modify the terms without affording the broker an opportunity for negotiations, purchase the property and thereby evade, on behalf of the seller, the payment of a commission. Such is not the law of the State of Florida."
Realty Marts International, Inc. v. Barlow, 348 So.2d 63, 64 (Fla. 1st DCA 1977).
Thus, the continuous negotiation requirement is vitiated where the seller and buyer exclude the broker, and the broker need only establish that the seller and buyer dealt him out. While we acknowledge that such descriptive terms as "secret," "clandestine," and "conspiratorial" are often found in the broker commission cases, the use of such terms hardly establishes an additional element of a broker's cause of action for a commission, that is, that the seller and buyer acted with bad motives. In our view, these terms, in this context, mean nothing more than that the buyer has negotiated directly with the seller without the participation of the broker who first called the property to the buyer's attention; this negotiation is called "secret," "clandestine," and "conspiratorial" because only the buyer and seller are in on it.
We therefore conclude that liability for the brokers' commission may be predicated on the simple fact that the seller and buyer, having been brought together by the brokers, strike their own deal. Contrary to the trial court, we conclude that there is no need for continuous negotiations to be conducted by or through a broker once the broker has been excluded by the seller and buyer. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment below with directions to enter judgment for the brokers.
Reversed.
NESBITT, J., concurs.
. The brokers also showed the Horns some other properties. Subsequently, Litwin learned that the Horns submitted a purchase offer to buy one of these properties directly to the owners, without notifying either Litwin or Sheldon Greene & Associates. Litwin advised the own ers of the property of the brokers' claim to a commission in the event of a sale, but no sale was ever consummated.
. There is absolutely no question in this record, and the appellees do not seriously contend otherwise (despite the dissenter's contrary view), that the trial court found that the brokers initially showed The Prince Arthur Apartments to the Horns and that the property was shown to the Horns with the full knowledge and approval of the owner's resident manager, Akber Ali. The record reveals that Ali, whom the dissent calls a "caretaker," was the resident manager of the apartments and, along with his duties of renting the apartments and maintaining the building, was required to greet and accompany brokers who were showing the property to prospective buyers. Before the Horns' visits to the property, one of which lasted an hour and a half, Bastacky, accompanied by Ali, had shown the property on nine or ten occasions. Ali's wife kept the books of the apartments.
The owner's official agent, Sadru Esmail, was Ali's brother. While the Horns' later direct contact with Esmail was not brought about by the brokers, that fact is irrelevant, since the Horns were shown the property by Ali. The trial court's view, shared by the dissent, that the owner was required to have actual knowledge that the brokers had shown the property to the Horns, and absent that, the owner acting through Esmail could not have intentionally excluded the brokers, is legally erroneous: actual notice to the seller is not necessary. A realtor having an open listing agreement with the seller "is under no obligation to notify the property owner every time the property is shown," and thus, even absent notification, may be considered the procuring cause of a sale consummated directly between the purchaser and the seller. Realty Marts, Inc. v. Barlow, 312 So.2d 544, 545 (Fla. 1st DCA 1975). See Realty Marts International, Inc. v. Barlow, 348 So.2d 63 (Fla. 1st DCA 1977). See generally 12 Am.Jur.2d Brokers § 232 (1964). A fortiori, where, as here, the owner, through the acts of its de facto agent, Ali, is legally deemed to have had notice of the showing of the property to the Horns, the brokers must prevail.
. It is also not the law of the State of Florida that buyers and sellers can be let off the hook for a broker's commission upon a showing, in the words of the dissent, "that the buyers were, in good faith, not interested in The Prince Arthur Apartments when first shown the property by the brokers . and that they only later became interested in The Prince Arthur when by happenstance they were led to the seller's agent_'' To permit such a defense to a suit for a broker's commission would be virtually to do away with the cause of action. The ludicrousness of the "I wasn't interested" defense is demonstrated in the present case by the fact that the Horns were first shown The Prince Arthur by the brokers in December 1980, bought another property (the Greystone) in February 1981, and contracted to buy The Prince Arthur in April 1981.