so then, you negotiated with your broker and they paid it for you?

Most of the time brokers justify it by saying "we have support staff who help to manage your transaction and they need to get paid"...so ultimately SOMEONE pays it...either you, your broker, or the customer/client...

Personally, I don't like'em, I don't use'em, and I don't like when listing agents charge'em to me as part of their compensation offered to buyers agents (that's been the fad in my area for the past year or two as well...you'll see "X% minus $250")...

I do understand'em, though - and ultimately someone's paying for that closing coordinator (even if that closing coordinator is YOU, and you consider it part of what you're paid to do out of your percentage...it's your time/effort and that equals $$...

That's how I understand it, anyway...

The agency I am with has had this fee($195.00) for about 5 years and in the beginning it was called a "Document Retention" fee and all of the closing documents were scanned onto a CD and the clients were given this. After the first year we were told that it was no longer a "Document Retention" fee but a "Transaction Fee" and everyone that had paid the $195.00 for a "Document Retention" fee was given the money back...it seems that our attorney didn't like the verbiage especially when records have to be kept for 7 years anyway.
I don't like the $195.00 fee and haven't passed this fee on to my clients in years..I get a fair split from my broker and look at it as the cost of doing business. May of the agencies in my area have a higher fee than this.

Paid it to who?! It goes to the broker so why would they pay themselves?! These are brokerage specific fees, not fees passed onto the franchise. I think there is still some confusion as to what we are talking about here!

is there a broker on here that can explain exactly what the transaction fee covers?

fogot to add.....and how you as a broker have your agents sell a client on that fee.

Ok, maybe this will be helpful.

Like I stated in my previous post on this thread, my brokerage charges a $350 "document protection fee" or "transaction fee". We even have a document that explains the fee. I believe the fee is supposed to be for document storage. It costs money to store all these real estate files. Maybe I will try and post the document that explains our fee.

I hate this fee because if the client doesn't pay it, I have to pay it. We also have a transaction coordinator that we can use if we pay for their services too for an additional $195. That is something completely seperate though. Many agents charge their clients the transaction fee plus the transaction coordinator fee. Some agents charge a bit more and try to make a few bucks off this fee. I don't think that is right. I don't use a transaction coordinator, so I have no need to charge more than $350.

Correct, we are talking about a fee that if unpaid by my client is deducted from my commissions after splits.

After reading the articles posted by TB (thanks TB!), I'm concerned about the danger of these policies of accepting money for intangible services will result in class action lawsuits of which I want no part of!