OLD CAR: the national fiduciary duties
On the national portion the duties an agent owes a principal are OLD CAR: Obedience to lawful instructions, Loyalty, Disclosure of material facts, Confidentiality, Accounting, and Reasonable care and skill. The leading distractor is honesty, fair dealing and disclosure of known material defects — duties owed to a customer, not a client.
Presenting offers
Promoting the client's interests includes timely presenting all offers, written or oral, even when the property is already subject to a contract of sale. When a seller accepts Friday and a higher written offer plus an oral offer arrive Saturday, the broker presents both. The common misunderstanding is that acceptance ends the duty. Oral offers count, and waiting for the first contract to terminate delays it.
Georgia rule: what survives termination
After termination, withdrawal, expiration or completion, the broker owes no further duties except two: accounting for all moneys and property relating to the engagement, and confidentiality of information the client designated confidential, unless the client permits disclosure, the law requires it, or it goes public. Loyalty and obedience end with the engagement; the frequent error is assuming confidentiality does too.
Georgia rule: the one year default
A brokerage relationship commences when the client engages the broker; if no expiration is provided and no termination occurs, it ends one year after initiation. An engagement signed March 15, 2026 with no expiration ends March 15, 2027 — not six months, not year end, not indefinitely. That one year figure is the default duration of an engagement with no stated expiration, not a survival period for every duty.
The agency that cannot be revoked
An agency coupled with an interest, where the agent holds a financial interest in the subject matter, cannot be revoked by the principal and does not end on the principal's death or incapacity. Open listings, exclusive agency listings and exclusive buyer engagements are ordinary personal-service agencies: the principal has the power to revoke, though revoking without cause may expose the principal to damages such as the broker's commission. A written term does not make an agency irrevocable.