The test, and how to use it
“Independent” is not a licensed word. Anyone selling a service to a buyer can use it, and almost everyone does. It describes an intention, not a structure — and intention is not what decides whose side someone is on. How they are paid is. What their contract permits is. Whether they will say a thing plainly is.
This is a test you can apply to anyone you are considering — including us. Six questions, each with a plain right answer, and a way to read the reply. It costs nothing and commits you to nothing. A genuinely buyer-side advisor answers all six easily, because for them the honest answer to each is already the clean one.
The six questions:
- Who, concretely, pays you?
- Do you hold any properties of your own?
- How are you paid for anything you refer me to?
- What, exactly, is in the contract?
- Would you ever tell me not to buy?
- If I don't buy anything for six months, what happens to you?
Alignment scorecard
Fill in a line for each answer as it lands.
Alignment Scorecard
1. Who pays you?
2. Own properties?
3. Paid on referrals?
4. In the contract?
5. Tell me not to buy?
6. If I don’t buy for six months?
Answer all six to save or share
Nothing you enter here is stored or transmitted — it lives in your browser session only, and disappears the moment you close the tab.
What each question means, and how the truth gets managed
A dishonest answer is rarely a lie. It is usually the truth, arranged so the part that matters is never quite said. That is the thing to listen for: not whether someone is lying, but whether they are answering. Below, for each question — what it reveals, the ways the truth tends to get managed, and what saying it plainly sounds like.
A note before you read them: a plain answer is not always the flattering one. An agent paid by the seller’s side can be entirely honest — by saying so. The test is not which model someone runs. It is whether they will tell you which model they run, in words you can act on.
1 · Who, concretely, pays you?
What it reveals: payment is loyalty. Whoever funds the service sets whose interest comes first.
How the truth gets managed:rarely by denying it — usually by relocating it. “You don’t pay anything” (true; the point is who does). “My focus is always the buyer’s interest” (an intention offered in place of a fact). “It’s all built into the transaction” (accurate, and unreadable). None of these is false. None of them answers the question.
Said plainly, it sounds like:“You pay me — only you.” Or, just as honestly, “The seller’s side pays me.” Either can be told straight. Only the straight version lets you weigh it.
2 · Do you hold any properties of your own?
What it reveals:an agent with listings, exclusives, or a developer’s stock has something of their own to place — a quiet pull the buyer never sees.
How the truth gets managed:by widening the frame. “We have access to the whole market” (which does not answer whether they also hold part of it). “We work with everyone” (true, and beside the point). The question is not what they can reach; it is what they are carrying.
Said plainly, it sounds like:“None — nothing of my own to steer you toward.” Or, honestly, “Yes, we hold some listings” — at which point you at least know to ask which properties are theirs.
3 · How are you paid for anything you refer me to?
What it reveals: referral commissions — from lawyers, brokers, insurers, currency, renovation — are a second loyalty, to the partner who pays them.
How the truth gets managed:by reframing the fee as a convenience. “I just connect you with people I trust” (which says nothing about who pays whom). “They look after my clients” (a warm sentence around a commercial one).
Said plainly, it sounds like:“I take nothing from referrals” — or — “Any referral fee is disclosed and credited back to you.” A number you can see, not a relationship you’re asked to trust.
4 · What, exactly, is in the contract?
What it reveals: an alignment that lives only in conversation is a mood, and moods are not binding. The contract is where a position becomes a commitment.
How the truth gets managed:by keeping it verbal. “You have my word” (which is the opposite of having it in writing). “We don’t usually put that in the contract” (usually is doing a great deal of work in that sentence). Portuguese law already forbids a mediator being paid by both sides of one deal — but whether they will write their buyer-only position into your mandate is a different, sharper question.
Said plainly, it sounds like:“Yes — here is the clause. Exclusive to you; no payment from the seller’s side; read it.” Shown, not described.
5 · Would you ever tell me not to buy?
What it reveals: whether they are paid to protect you or paid to close.
How the truth gets managed:by agreeing in principle and evaporating in practice. “Of course, all the time” — followed by no example they can actually reach for. Enthusiasm is easy here; a specific occasion is not.
Said plainly, it sounds like:“Yes — and here is a time I did.” A real instance of killing a deal, told without strain, because it happens when your interest and theirs point the same way.
6 · If I don’t buy anything for six months, what happens to you?
What it reveals: the question almost no buyer asks, and the one that reaches deepest. Under the standard model, an agent is paid only when a deal closes — so every month without a signature is a loss carried alone, and that pressure reaches the buyer as urgency.
How the truth gets managed:by promising patience without a structure to fund it. “I’m never in a hurry” (from someone whose only income is your completion) is a hope, not an arrangement. Listen past the promise for what pays for the wait.
Said plainly, it sounds like: a straight account of what the six months cost them and what carries it — reputation, a fee that does not depend on your buying, an advance that returns if nothing completes. The specifics matter less than the willingness to give them.
The test, applied to us
We publish the test we ask you to use. So here it is, run on Soverite — plainly, and whatever the answer.
1. Who pays us? You. Only you. Nothing reaches us from the seller, the agent, the developer, or the bank — and it is written into the mandate.
2. Do we hold properties of our own? None. No listings, no exclusives, no stock to place. There is nothing we gain by steering you toward one property over another.
3. Referral fees? We take none. Anyone we introduce you to is introduced because they are right for you, not because they pay us.
4. In the contract? Yes — exclusive to you, seller-side payment prohibited in writing. You read the clause before you sign anything.
5. Would we tell you not to buy?When that is the truth, yes — without hesitating. We work with a few clients well served, not with volume; our reputation and word of mouth are worth more to us than the fee on any single deal, and a client walked into the wrong purchase costs us exactly that. But if, knowing the risks, you want to buy — you have our full support. Our role is not to decide for you; it is to make sure you decide alongside everything we’ve identified, not in the dark.
6. If you don’t buy for six months? We can wait, for two reasons. The first is reputation: the next client comes from the last one served well, so a rushed sale into the wrong home costs us more than it earns. The second is structure: our fee is built so that waiting pays off — we do not depend on your buying quickly to be paid for the work.
We did not write the reassuring version of any of these. We wrote the one you can check — the AMI on the IMPIC register, the clause in the mandate, the number of any advance returned if nothing completes.
Because the test was never whether the answer is the one you hoped for. It is whether you were given the answer at all — plainly enough to decide for yourself.
The full argument behind these questions is set out in how to pick the right person to be on your side of the table. For the structural context, see buyer’s agent vs estate agent.