Need some opinions/advice on a weird agent commission/referral fee situation for multi-million house

My grandparents bought a house in the 1950s that is in poor condition at this point, but in land value alone is worth over 3 million dollars. As trustee of the family estate I'm responsible for dealing with it, but I live 1000 miles away in another state.

I hired a company to do multiple estate sales at the property selling my grandparent's belongings which drew the attention at least a dozens of real estate agents who were able to find my contact info and contact me. Most claiming they had clients who were interested in making offers.

It's a VERY hot neighborhood. House itself, was appraised for 3.2, but because of the location it's been the target of many investors/builders who would likely tear it down and build something much larger to sell for much more. Two on that very street re-built and sold over 7-8 mil.

I had two very real investors wanting to make an offer at 3.6 mil with all contingencies waived. One of which was also a licensed agent and was going to cover all closing expenses meaning I'd pay nothing in agent fees.

I briefly explored going down that route of selling off market and hiring a real estate attorney at a flat fee to help with the documentation, but I had multiple people in my life I was consulting with who were strongly advising I just hire an agent and list it on market. The thinking is, if the property already had that much interest off market, it would be behoove me to list it properly, advertised it to a much larger audience, and try to generate some kind of bidding war – even if ultimately I end up taking home less by selling it for 3.6 and paying out commissions.

• "Standard" 6% commission on a 3.6 mil house would be $216,000. Meaning, I'd have to sell it for over 3.8 to make this exercise worthwhile.

I personally know real estate agents (the friend I use where I live, family members in different states, etc) who had been giving me advice, but none do business in that State. I put out a blanket ask to see if they could refer me to any agents in that area. I flew out there and met with 5 different agents, but basically narrowed it down to two.

• Option 1 (Mark): This is a weird one. My agent local agent (Paul) referred me to a lady (Sally) who does business in both states. When I met with Sally, she had brought in a "partner" (Mark) who happens to be a huge real estate big wig in that particular neighborhood. Like, every transaction Mark does is a multi-million dollar deal. Has been involved in 10 of the last 12 sales on that street. Knows all the builders and agents who had reached out to me. I thought nothing of Sally, but got a great impression of Mark. Clearly Mark knows his shit and opened my eyes to a lot of things I need to be careful about. He had a plan of action that made a lot of sense. I ended up calling Mark directly and asking him to explain how his referral situation worked if he was technically a referral of a referral and he explained that he was actually going to be giving up 40% of his commission to Sally and Paul. I asked how I could be sure I was getting the "Full Mark" if he was giving up so much of his commission, but he assured me he'd give it 100% effort…
• Option 2 (Jeff): Referred to me by a friend of mine (not an agent) who lives out there and had hired this guy when he bought a condo. I'll call the agent Jeff. Jeff showed up with his partner Melissa. Again, I got a great impression from them. They haven't done nearly the level of business as Mark, but have done similar sized deals in the general area. They clearly knew their stuff, though and had very similar advice as Mark. On some level, I saw them as the underdogs and believed they'd be hungrier to put in a higher level of effort on my behalf.

Commission Negotiation: Initially I was being told 6% was standard with buyer and seller agent splitting. After some back and forth, Mark told me he'd do 5% (2.5/2.5) but as low as 4% if he was also representing the buyer (side note, it was hard to say if his deep relationships with the builders/investors in the area was a good or bad thing as I know it's common for agents to take minimal commission on the initial transaction with the promise that they represent them after the rebuild and get a full commission on much larger sale). Jeff and his partner told me they had no problem matching that commission structure.

Ultimately, I was leaning towards going with Mark, because of his experience/knowledge/connections, but also because my local agent friend, who have a really strong relationship with, was going to be getting a referral fee. I communicated this to Jeff that it was a really hard choice and he quickly came back saying, they'd be happy to pay out a referral fee to "whoever you want" if it made a difference.

I talked to Jeff and his partner on the phone and explained the situation. I explained that Mark was actually planning on paying out 40% of his total commission to my agent (Paul) and the middle man (Sally) and that while I didn't have much reason to care about Sally, I did think that if any referral fee was going to paid out, it should go to Paul and a cousin of mine as both had been a sounding board for months giving me advice throughout the process. I understood that asking them to pay out 40% of their commission was unreasonable, but asked what they'd normally pay out in this situation and I was told "standard referral is 25%"… That made sense to me and seemed to be what I found online as "standard" referral %. I explained if I went with them, I'd actually have them split that referral fee between Paul and my cousin and they said that would be no problem at all.

For Reference:

• On a 3.6 mil sale with listing agent taking 2.5% ($90,000), paying out 40% of that commission as a referral would have had Mark taking home $54,000 (60%) while my agent Paul/Sally split the $36,000 referral (each taking $18,000). To be honestly, I didn't love the idea of Sally taking home $18,000 for basically doing nothing other than introduce me to Mark.

• On a 3.6 mil sale with listing agent taking 2.5% ($90,000) paying out 25% of that commission as a referral would have had Jeff taking home $67,500 while local agent Paul and my cousin (also an out of state agent) split a $22,500 referral (each taking home $11,250).

I gave the decision a couple more weeks of thought. At some point, Mark sent me a written proposal with an even lower commission structure than previously discussed. Now he was saying 4% total commission (2% seller/2% buyer) or 3% total commission if he represented the buyer. Again, Jeff and his partner said they had no problem matching that.

For Reference:

• On a 3.6 mil sale with listing agent taking 2% ($72,000), paying out 40% of that commission as a referral would have had Mark taking home $43,200 (60%) while my agent Paul/Sally split the $28,800 referral (each taking $14,400). Again, I didn't love the idea of Sally taking home $14,400 for basically doing nothing other than introduce me to Mark.

• On a 3.6 mil sale with listing agent taking 2% ($72,000) paying out 25% of that commission as a referral would have had Jeff taking home $54,000 while local agent Paul and my cousin (also an out of state agent) split a $18,000 referral (each taking home $9000).

It sounded like Mark already had a builder client who was interested. I gave it a lot of thought and honestly part of me kind of liked that Jeff and his partner didn't have all the same builder/investor connections that Mark had as it made me think their focus would entirely be on representing me and negotiating with my best interest in mind. I also worried that Mark giving up such a sizeable part of his commission on a deal that was much smaller than he was accustomed to doing might not get his full effort.

Given that Jeff and his partner were agreeing to match everything Mark was offering and that I genuinely had a great impression from them, I ultimately made the touch decision of going with them.

I did want to make sure the referral portion they promised was part of the process, but given this is sort of unusual, none of the listing agreement documents mention that aspect. I had asked Jeff about how I'd go about making sure Paul and my cousin got paid and I was told they'd need to contact Jeff with their information. No problem. I signed the exclusive listing agreement and told both Paul and my cousin to contact Jeff as they'd each be sharing 25% of Jeff's commission as a referral fee (12.5% each).

Oops.

Although "25% is a standard referral" was communicated to me over the phone, I never got that in writing.

As soon as Paul and my cousin reached out to Jeff with their info asking for the shared split of 25%, Jeff contacted me saying, "oh actually… normally we offer a 20% referral at 6% total commission. In this case we are able to provide 10% total referral as a courtesy to you and your relationships seeing as how we didn’t receive this as a referral."

This was the first time I was seeing "10%" communicated to me. I reminded them they told me 25% over the phone. They reiterated they were able to pay out 10% of their commission as a referral "as a courtesy" to me. They suggested that if we moved the commission structure back up to 5% total instead of 4%, they'd be fine with paying out 25%.

For reference:

• On a 3.6 mil sale with listing agent taking 2% ($72,000), paying out 10% of that commission as a referral would have had Jeff taking home $64,800 (90%) while my agent Paul/my cousin split the $7200 referral (each taking $3600).

Obviously, this gets into a broader discussion about how much commission agents actually deserve on a transaction like this, how much my agent and my cousin really deserve given neither of them actually referred me to this agent, etc, but suddenly telling me their referral is 10% when they previously told me 25% over the phone very much feels like a "gotcha" moment that's soured me on things before the property has even officially been listed. It also puts me in a very embarrassing situation of having to go back to Paul and my cousin and saying "oh yeah… uh… actually… you know how I told you guys you were splitting 25% of the commission… uh… my bad… it's actually 10%".

Just looking for some thoughts/advice before I respond to Jeff about it. At this point, I have an exclusive listing agreement with Jeff and his partner. It's possible some of this was just basic miscommunication and they had never intended to pay out 25%. Granted, they had told me 25% back when the commission structure was higher so on some level I get why they'd want to compensate for agreeing to a lower fee structure, but this surprise has me questioning what else they might surprise me with as we get further along.