When my mother in law passed away her only asset was her house and she transferred ownership to my wife and her sister when she realized she was dying.
After she passed the two sisters decided to sell and split the proceeds up the middle. When it came time to close I suggested they should get a lawyer just to look things over and be sure everything was correct.
The sister didn’t want to spend the money, I asked if she minded if I paid the lawyer. She had no problem.
The day of the closing we met at the title company to close, the lawyer came early to meet with the title company and go over everything. We heard him rip everyone a new one. I asked what’s up?
The numbers were wrong, not that big of a deal and we would have caught it. The bigger problem was the legal description of the property was wrong on the title that was about to be recorded with the county and not just a little wrong, it was like different piece of property wrong.
That was a potential nightmare in the future.
Worth the 600 bucks we paid (the buyer should have thanked us and tossed in a few bucks) and one of the reasons I won’t sign any major contract without a lawyer. Just a short story I tell when people say they don’t need a lawyer to buy or sell a house.
I work at an assessor’s office in a west coast state (US) and this happens here too. We jokingly call these “pocket listings” - where the realtor keeps listings to themselves and only shows them to clients they represent, so they can get both the buyers AND the seller’s commission. It’s another method of steering…
I work in an assessor’s office in the US, and we get people who ask legal questions to us, which we are not allowed to give legal advice on. We always tell them to consult a lawyer. I always drop in the line “make sure they deal with real estate law, as most lawyers have no clue when it comes to real estate” Hell, even most BROKERS have no clue about real estate law.
For example - Even when I sold my father-in-law’s home, the broker had no idea about the parent-to-child reassessment exemption our state offered. And brokers do this for a living.
I see the realtor ecosystem as something like that of rats in a city. When there is a lot of trash or cash lying around they multiply, when times are tough only the good ones survive.
At the moment there are mountains of cash flying around. People are selling their houses for more than they asked, and people are paying outlandish sums for places they haven’t even seen. This is a giant grifter attractant and we see swarms of leased crossover SUVs with overdressed parasites appear. At some point the money train will stop running and most of them will be broke and going back to whatever those people do in other times.
OMG. I didn’t realize this was a thing, but my spouse and I tried to buy a condo once. We had a loan for $300,000, but didn’t want to spend over $100,000. The real estate guy was awful, and would just not respond when we asked to see certain homes, and was so ridiculous to work with, we just dumped him and the idea of trying to buy at that time.
My first wife was a real estate peddler, my braggart next door neighbor was a real estate agent, the gal we used to sell our two houses when we bought out present home was a ‘realtor’. In 58 years I’ve only met one Realtor that I could respect and trust. Doesn’t speak well for the field, does it?
My late father was a rarity: a realtor with integrity. He always did everything in his power to do right by both buyer and seller, even if he was only representing one side of a sale and even if it meant a smaller commission for him. He mentored younger realtors to do the same too.
I remember when he was on his deathbed (I was in the States to be there), we got a call out of the blue from a man who said that he had sold his house through my dad 20 years ago when he moved out of the area, but was planning on moving back and said that he would like to work with my dad if he was still in the business. He still remembered his experience from 20 years before.
Growing up, I saw what a lot of people in the industry were like, but I was always proud of what my dad did.
