Question
I buy and sell real estate. There is an agent, who we will call Reuvein, who from time to time sends me, as well as others who deal in real estate, an e-mail with information about properties that are currently available. I never asked him to send me this information but now I saw a property in his email that I am interested in purchasing. From past experience I know that my chances to close the deal are much better if I use a different agent, called Shimeon. Am I obligated to use Reuvein? If I am not required to use Reuvein am I obligated to inform him that I used the information he provided and pay him for that? That could be problematic since he will demand that I use his services even if I am not required by Torah law to do so and he may sue me for that in secular court.
Answer
Your first question is whether Torah law obligates you to use the agent's services to complete the deal. In order to answer that question, we have to first characterize the relationship you will have with the agent if you use the information he provided you with.
If you had asked the agent to provide you with the information which he then provided, since he generally works as an agent your action would be viewed legally as hiring him as your agent. What this implies depends on local custom (See Mishpatei Yosher volume 1 page 220.) as follows.
If it is customary that one who is hired to find a suitable property is thereby hired to complete the entire deal, then if you asked the agent to find a property and did not explicitly stipulate otherwise it is as if you offered him to serve as your agent in the entire process of purchasing the property. Thus, if you had asked Reuvein to find properties for you and then you used the information that he provided, you thereby hired him legally to work as your agent for the entire process that will culminate with your purchase of the property.
In this situation, once the agent began working by finding a property, he has the status of an employee, since (CM 333, 2) one of the ways to establish an employer-employee relationship (a kinyan of secherus poalim) is by starting to work (known as hascholas melocho). So, if you ask an agent to find properties for you, and he provides information about a property, you are legally hiring him to work as your agent to acquire the property for you and you are liable for the entire amount one pays an agent who completes the job of acquiring the property, even if you do not use any more of his subsequent services.
The reason for this is because, if one hires an employee to work for him, he obligates himself to pay the employee his full wages. Therefore, once the agent provides his customer with information he immediately becomes his employee, and even if subsequently the customer does not use the agent's services to purchase the property he will nevertheless be obligated to pay him almost the entire amount that one pays an agent who completes the entire task. (The customer can deduct something to account for the fact that the agent did not need to actually work.) In effect, by not using the agent's subsequent services the customer fired the agent in the middle of the job. When one hires someone to accomplish a certain task, the employer is obligated to pay his employee the amount he agreed to pay even if he later changes his mind and decides to use someone else for the job.
All the above applies only if it is customary that one who hires an agent to locate a property thereby hires him also to act on his behalf to acquire the property. However, if often people just hire agents to locate an available property, then even if you asked the agent to find you an available property and you use that information, you are not obligated to use his services to complete the purchase of the property since you never explicitly told the agent that you will be using his services to complete the deal.
However, you did not ask the agent to locate a property for you. The agent sent you the information on his own initiative. If you decide to use this information you must compensate him not as an employee but as a yoreid. The obligation to pay a yoreid is because one must pay for the benefit the yoreid gave him. (See Mishpatei Yosher 2, pages 3-5.)
A law that highlights this difference is that one must pay his employee immediately but one is not obligated to pay a yoreid immediately.
This difference is also pertinent to your question. Using unsolicited information does not constitute employment. Therefore, you have no obligation to continue using the services of an agent who provides you with unsolicited information. Furthermore, if you could reasonably assume that you would certainly find out the information he provided by other means (Iggros Moshe CM 1, 49), you are not even obligated to pay him for the information he provides.
Since according to Torah law you are not obligated to use Reuvein's subsequent services, we must consider how much you owe him for the information he provided. If there is a customary amount that people pay for just receiving this type of information, that is the amount you must pay. The general practice among people who follow Torah law is to pay one third of the total agent's fee to one who provides the information. Therefore, if there is no other custom in your area, you are obligated to pay Reuvein one third of the total agent's fee for this deal and Shimeon would be entitled to two thirds of the agent's fee.
You raised another issue: You fear that if you act according to this ruling and pay Reuvein what you owe him, Reuvein will then sue you in secular court for money that you are not obligated to pay according to Torah law, which Reuvein is obligated to abide by since he is Jewish. On the other hand, if you do not pay him he will not know that you used his information.
Your question is what to do in case you are obligated to pay some money but if you pay that amount the recipient will force you to pay a further amount that you are not obligated to pay. This means that he will steal money from you.
This issue comes up often. One common scenario is when a person rents a car and makes a minor dent in the car which costs a small amount to fix. Some car rental companies will bring the car to their repair shop who, instead of merely fixing the dent, will fix all of the dents and repaint the door, all at the customer's expense which the customer is not obligated to pay. The car rental company will nonetheless charge his credit card, stealing from the customer. The customer is in a predicament. If he does not inform the car rental, they will not notice that he damaged the car but he will have a legal debt to them but if he does tell them, they will steal from him.
The case where this is discussed in SA (CM 368, 6 in the Ramo) concerns a Jew who paid a ruler for the right to collect taxes. Torah law requires the local residents to pay their tax liability. However, this Jewish tax collector would overcharge and force the taxpayers to overpay, which is theft on the part of the tax collector. Jewish residents are thus in a predicament. If they mislead the tax-collector they can avoid paying the tax collector completely. But if they do not, the tax collector will overcharge i.e., will steal from him. The Taz writes that a resident may mislead the tax collector since the tax-collector caused his own problem. As far as his debt is concerned, the resident should try to get the money to the tax-collector stealthily.
The Pischei Choshen (Geneivo page 17) is uncertain about the resident's obligation to ensure that the tax-collector receives the taxes that he is really owed. One possibility is that it is not a strict halachic obligation since the reason the resident avoids paying is to thwart the tax-collector from stealing. The other approach is that the only reason the resident is allowed to fool the tax-collector is because the resident intends to somehow pay the tax collector. In this case the resident must try to find some way to pay.
Thus, if your fear is legitimate, you may withhold the information from Reuvein. If you can find a way to get the money to Reuvein anonymously immediately that is ideal. If you cannot, perhaps you can leave the money with the local beis din and ask them to eventually get the money to Reuvein without disclosing the source of the funds. By leaving the money with beis din you will avoid the danger that you will forget about your debt.
In conclusion: You are not required to use Reuvein's services to acquire the property that he told you about. If indeed you do not use him further you are required to pay him for the benefit that you derived from the information that he provided unless you would have received this information in a way that would not cost you anything. The custom in Torah law is to pay one third of the total agent's fee to the one who provides the information. If you have a justified fear that by informing Reuvein that you used the information he gave you he will force you to pay more than you owe, you may withhold this information from him but you must find a way to get the money to him.
