Updated August 2026 · Reviewed by Adams, Cameron & Co.
You keep working, you write everything down, and you escalate before a deadline forces your hand. The critical point is that contract dates do not pause because somebody is ignoring you, so your first duty is protecting your client's position rather than winning the argument. Try every channel you have, put your attempts in writing, then call the other agent's broker, which is a normal professional step rather than an act of war. If a date is genuinely at risk, that is a conversation with your own broker and possibly your client's attorney, and it needs to happen early rather than on the afternoon it expires.
- Deadlines keep running. Silence on the other side does not extend an inspection period or a financing date.
- Document every attempt, with dates and times. That record is what protects your client later.
- Escalate to their broker. It is ordinary practice, not an escalation to be apologetic about.
- Tell your client early. They should hear about a risk from you, not discover it at the deadline.
- Most of the time it is chaos rather than malice, which is worth remembering in how you handle it.
Every agent has a story about this. A listing agent who never answers, a buyer's agent who goes silent after an inspection report, somebody who takes four days to acknowledge an offer. It is one of the more genuinely frustrating parts of the job.
Start with the part that matters: the clock
The single most important thing to understand is that contractual deadlines do not care whether somebody is answering you. An inspection period runs out on schedule. A financing deadline arrives. A closing date holds.
So the first question is never how to make them reply. It is what happens to your client's position if they never do, and what you need to have done by then. Work backwards from the nearest date and act on that timetable rather than on how long feels reasonable to wait.
If a deadline is genuinely at risk, that is not a problem to solve by continuing to send messages. It is a conversation with your broker, and possibly a matter for your client's attorney, and it needs to happen days early rather than on the afternoon it expires.
Work the channels, properly
Before escalating, be able to say honestly that you tried.
- Phone, and actually leave a message. A missed call with no voicemail is easy to ignore and impossible to point to later.
- Email, with the point in the subject line and a specific question with a date attached, rather than a general request to call you.
- Text, since a substantial number of agents answer a text far faster than an email.
- The MLS record, which sometimes carries a different number or an assistant's contact.
- The brokerage's main office line. Not the escalation yet, simply a working number, and often the fastest fix when somebody is on holiday.
Give a real deadline in the message. Not a passive-aggressive one, a factual one: the inspection period ends Thursday and I need a response by Wednesday afternoon to protect my client's position.
Write it all down
Keep a simple record: date, time, method, what you asked, whether you got a response. It takes seconds and it does two things.
It gives you something specific to hand the other broker instead of a complaint that somebody has been unhelpful. And if the transaction ends badly, it is contemporaneous evidence that your client's position was protected by you rather than damaged by delay. That is the same discipline that matters in what happens if a complaint is filed against you, where the file decides the outcome.
Escalate to their broker, without apology
New agents are reluctant to do this, treating it as informing on a colleague. It is not. Every licensee operates under a broker who is responsible for their conduct, and a call saying you have been unable to reach someone on a live transaction with a deadline approaching is completely ordinary.
Do it factually. Give the property, the deadline, what you have tried and when. Ask who you should be speaking to. Almost always the response is immediate and helpful, because a broker would far rather fix this than hear about it later from a complaint.
Tell your own broker first, or at least at the same time. They may know the firm, they may prefer to make the call themselves, and they will certainly want to know before it becomes a problem. Whether that person is available when you need them is exactly the point of why a non-competing manager changes everything.
Keep your client informed, early
Clients tolerate problems far better than they tolerate surprises.
Tell them plainly that you have not been able to reach the other side, what you have done about it, and what the timeline means. Do not editorialize about the other agent, which achieves nothing and sounds unprofessional. Explain what happens if there is no response by the relevant date and what their options would be.
The instinct is to protect a client from worry by handling it quietly. That instinct is wrong here, because if it does go wrong, the first they hear of it will be at the worst moment, and the reasonable question will be why they were not told sooner.
Assume chaos rather than malice
Occasionally somebody is being deliberately obstructive. Far more often the explanation is ordinary: a family emergency, a health problem, a phone that broke, an agent who has taken on more than they can handle, or somebody quietly leaving the business mid-transaction.
This matters practically, not just as a courtesy. If you treat it as an insult you will write a message that ends up forwarded to a broker, and you will be the one who looks unprofessional. Stay factual in everything you put in writing, on the assumption that anything you send may be read by that agent's broker and possibly your own.
It also matters because this market is small. You will be across the table from these people repeatedly, and the version of you they remember is the one who stayed straightforward when it was annoying.
The variations worth knowing
Silence after an inspection request. Frequently a seller deciding rather than an agent ignoring you. Ask directly whether they need more time and be specific about what the contract requires by when, since the mechanics in Florida's AS IS contract determine what your client can do if nothing arrives.
No acknowledgement of an offer. Confirm it was actually received, since submission problems are more common than rudeness. Ask when the seller will be presented with it.
Silence in the final week before closing. The most serious version, because everything from a walkthrough to a title issue can hang on it. Escalate immediately rather than waiting, and involve the closing agent, who has their own interest in the transaction completing and their own channels.
The honest bottom line
Protect the deadline first, document every attempt, escalate to their broker sooner than feels polite, and keep your client informed before there is anything to worry about.
Assume disorganization rather than bad faith, keep everything you write factual enough to be forwarded, and get on with the parts of the transaction you can control.
← Back to For Experienced Agents