Real estate fraud..

[Bad2DBone]

I don't know many people here but I have got the feeling from seeing some posts that there are more then a few peeps here that deal in real estate in one form or the other so I figured I would see what you guys/gals thought of this little diddy.
I'll try to keep this short and not get to carried away with useless crap plus I'm sure I got names/titles wrong but I hope you can get the jist.
Back in October we bought a new house and didn't have time to sell our old one so we found an agent to sell ours. Things seemed ok from the begining till we found a buyer and accepted a bid. We agreed on $295 but we were a little concered when we got a promisary note instead of a ernest check. We have a friend that works for WaMu as a loan agent( or something like that) and she likes to help us keep track of whats going on.
The promisary note really miffed her as it made it look like thses people had no money but our agent said we had nothing to worry about. WRONG.....
So needless to say things started going downhill fast.
We were supposed to sign on Dec 20th.
We never got a letter of commitment nor did we ever find out if the "note" got turned into ernest money. My wife asked our agent numerous times about both these issues but we always got the run around.
Well the 20th came and we found out that the Docs were still at the finance joint...Country Wide...
So we were going to need to file an extension.
Our friend smelled something fishy and called Counrty Wide and tried to find out what was up. They told her it was held up for a few reasons... One of them was that the apprasial came in low. She was a little shocked so she asked how low. The CW officer said $312 and that since we were asking $315 they needed to get that worked out. She asked if she could get a copy of the papers faxed to her.. No problem... Sure as shit she got a copy and the line were we had $295 wrote out was scrathed out and $315 was writted down and our initials were signed right FN next to it.
Well this pissed off our friend and she immediatly called us.
she then got the name of the escrow company and talked to them. They also sent her a fax of the contract. It said $295.
my wife then called and asked for a HUD settlement and it was at $315.
WTF.
So we knew someone was looking to get some extra cash from country wide than divvy it up between them. but we didn't know who.
Our friend then called counrty wide a few days latter and all was fine now as the seller changed the selling price to $312 to match the apprasial. Again with our initials on it.
Now jump to the signing...
Things went to shit real fast when we asked who was getting the extra $17K more then the selling price. :2purples:
We got yelled at and told to leave the office immediatly. but not before we stired the pot. We asked our selling agent to be at the signing with us. She was shocked and said she new nothing about it. she then showed us the paper work she had and sure as shit on page 2 it said selling price...$312. She almost shit and said she new nothing. Yeah right.
Almost done....
Now skip to our selling agents broker, he still tried to get us to sign fraudulent docs saying we still had a valid buyer and that this is done sometimes so the buyer can get a better rate. Yeah but don't we needto know about it and how in the F can they just put our initials all over the place. Again WTF! The broker then called the buyers agents/broker andthey confessed to the cut/paste of our initials but hadsome dumbass excuse as to why they did it. We asked to get out of our contract and give us our ernest money. well needless to say he said there was no ernest money and we would get nothing unless it was written down and fro ma lawyer. Well this cock bite then assumed it was over I guess as he treated us like dirt.
We called a real estate lawyer, supposedly one of the best in Seattle, he said we had a very good case and would work with us for a nice sum of $250.00/HR. Pro bono of the year (http://www.kcba.org/barbulletin/0406/article5.html)
So we see him today.
Anyone ever see a deal like this...

[Mandelon]

Those folks have been reading some of those late night info-mercial books on how to get rich in real estate. How to buy with no money down, and get cash at closing.
Fire your agent and let her broker know. Bust the other broker with whatever Washington has as a Dept of R.E. and let the lawyers have at it. If the contract specified a deposit, you ought to be entitled to it.
At least you know your house is worth $312,000 not $295,000, another smack for the agent who underpriced it and left that much $$$$ on the table.
It could have been worse, at least you are only out a few bucks and some time.....and not a ton of $$$$$$ too.

[Bad2DBone]

We contacted the licensing agency in Olympia and the NWMLA and they are going after the Escrow and buying agent who forged our signatures. Our lawyer is on the heels of our agents broker. So hopefully this shit never happens to any one else.
But your right, we could of never found out and got screwed severly. :argue:

[callbob4homes]

WOW! that is amazing. I am an agent and I have never seen that. If I was your agent I would have taken that to the ethics board immediatly if not sooner. and cancelled the contract. not to mention NEVER have taken a note in place of an earnest deposit in the form of at least a personal check. That is fraud on the part of the buying side the way I read this and not knowing Wash. RE laws, I would still think you are due some compensation. Sad to say there is still some dishonest people in this business, as everywhere. In Arizona, you could lose your lic and be fined a large sum of money for falsifiying paperwork. for any reason. I know a broker in Havasu that is a crooked f@cker that gets away with sh!t because the fat ass knows most people won't get a lawyer. screwed me out of a couple of commissions on about a million dollars for 2 properties. and one of the buyers helped him do it. So it is not always the property owner that gets the shaft. scumbags are everywhere, if you have concerns, let your agent know and if they try to blow you off, fire em and get someone who will work for you. good luck :burningm:

[bigd1]

Didn't you post about this back when they made the offer and you thought it smelled fishy? Guess you were right. Don't ever trust the agent - they are working on commission and want the deal to go through. It's worth the money to have an attorney review everything along the way.

[callbob4homes]

oh nice post^ hate to break it to you budro, but some of us are ethical and some of us actually look out for our clients interests because we build our business on referrals. referrals don't come to you when you screw people around. Like I said above, if your agent isn't looking out for your best interests..............FIRE 'EM. and as a side note, there are a few people out there not buyer or seller savvy, that need a good agent to walk them through the process. Unfortunatly, there are those that think they know everything and f@ck up the deal by NOT listening to their agent. Those are the ones I walk away from.

[haulina29]

Other than the fact you may have owed a few more dollars in taxes if you had not lived in it for two years I would have let it go . As long as your got what you wanted who cares what the buyer and his lender do they may have been trying to cover closing costs ? Its not worth paying a laywer @ $ 250 per hour to get screwed . Take the money and run . They should have asked you if it was ok to do this first but really who cares who gets the xtra money as long as you got what you wanted ? By the way this happens all the time but usually the seller is notified first .

[callbob4homes]

Other than the fact you may have owed a few more dollars in taxes if you had not lived in it for two years I would have let it go . As long as your got what you wanted who cares what the buyer and his lender do they may have been trying to cover closing costs ? Its not worth paying a laywer @ $ 250 per hour to get screwed . Take the money and run . They should have asked you if it was ok to do this first but really who cares who gets the xtra money as long as you got what you wanted ? By the way this happens all the time but usually the seller is notified first .
this is true except for the fact you cannot forge signatures or change the contract after the fact. adding on to cover closing costs is a standard practice IF it is disclosed up front and in the original contract. The only problem you would run into is if it bumps the house higher than the appraisal. We run into that alot over here now because of the hot sellers market. If the buyer is putting enough down or willing to buy down the appraisal, (more cash up front) no problemo. Under no circumstance I am aware of, do you change the contract AFTER it has been signed and accepted by both parties. and this probably comes under the RESPA act for not disclosing who is getting the extra money.

[Dave C]

Call the district attorney's office too. In Kaliefornia they have consumer affairs offices. Don't know about washington.
That is Fraud. They like to know who is committing crimes in their jurisdiction.

[bigd1]

oh nice post^ hate to break it to you budro, but some of us are ethical and some of us actually look out for our clients interests because we build our business on referrals. referrals don't come to you when you screw people around. Like I said above, if your agent isn't looking out for your best interests..............FIRE 'EM. and as a side note, there are a few people out there not buyer or seller savvy, that need a good agent to walk them through the process. Unfortunatly, there are those that think they know everything and f@ck up the deal by NOT listening to their agent. Those are the ones I walk away from.
I didn't mean to call you or anyone out. I'm just saying that I've been involved in several "deals gone bad" and it's worth the money to have an attorney verify the transaction up front. And yes the right person makes all the difference.