Referral fees -- am I just being a Goody Two Shoes?
So I have a two part question, definitely glad to have an anonymous place to ask. Just curious how other people would handle this. I have an older broker friend who I love dearly. He has been semi-retired for a while and sends me his past clients when he's unable to take them on. A couple of clients a year, some very high needs, and I do my best to treat them like family. I just did a sale and a purchase for two of his clients, and when I called to let him know the transactions were closed, he said "by the way, I let my license expire." Now I am at a loss for how to handle the referral fee that we agreed on at the beginning of the transaction.
As I was thinking about it I also thought back to a couple of times when acquaintances, like the estate sale lady I see regularly, or an elderly neighbor, offered to hook me up with a steady stream of referrals for a fee and I politely declined because it's against the rules to pay referral fees to unlicensed parties. Both of them seemed a little annoyed at that and the estate sale lady says people pay her referral fees "all the time." Am I just uptight? Is this a thing that just happens that we don't talk about?