Date: Mon, 6 Oct 1997 16:10:05 -0400 (EDT)
From: Pomona A Valero <pv0b+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Realtor Disrecommendation
To: bovik@cs.cmu.edu
Message-ID: <876168605.16550.0@cluman.ac.acs.cmu.edu>

Avoid Luise Wikes of Re/Max in Shadyside.

My boyfriend and I had put in an offer on a small piece of property
in Regent Square.  The inspector's report reveiled a lot of problems:
new roof needed, electrical work out of code, basement leaks, etc.
2 days after the inspection, we wrote a letter to exercise termination
of sales agreement, mailed Certified-Return-Receipt.

The letter was returned to us, 3 attempts to deliver (and 3 notices
of attempts to them).

In the meantime, we received a letter from the Sellers indicating
that since they hadn't received notice, they were expecting the
settlement proceedings to continue as scheduled.  Their letter stated,
"upon consultation with an attorney."

I sent a copy of their letter to my attorney and after further
investigation, we discovered that the sellers never spoke with an
attorney, Luise did.  Luise did give us the name of their attorney,
so it was, "okay, let my attorney contact your attorney."  Their
attorney had never heard of the Sellers!  He spoke with Luise, a
friend of his, for 2 minutes.

They then tried to negotiate to keep the hand money and, "let you out
of the Sales Agreement."

I finally contacted the OWNER of Re/Max Shadyside, Jill Portland, to
let her aware of the situation.  I also sent her a copy of the markings
of the termination letter with dates showing that we fulfilled the
provisions of the Inspection Rider.

I also let her know that if they didn't release us of the Sales
Agreement and return our hand money in full, we would take the case
to the Magistrate's office.  And if they find in favor of us, they
would have to release us and return our hand money or put a lien
against their property.

By the next business day, a Termination Agreement was signed by the
Sellers and we were released.  We also received the hand money in
full.  They said that they would, "take this up with the U.S. Postal
Service since we never received any notices."  Yeah, whatever.  The
wife works for the U.S. Postal Service.


The bottomline was that Luise tried to "trap" us into the purchase.
Worse yet, she had our agent convinced that we had no other recourse
but to purchase the property.  And if you have the slightest doubt
that there's something going wrong, don't give in!  You may actually
be right!


Pomona