Not too long ago I had a buyer for a property up in Acton. I showed her quite a few properties over a couple of months and as luck would have it the perfect property came up while I was away for 4 days. Not wanting to miss out on the property, an associate of mine took her through and through email we managed to put in an offer that was accepted. The offer was conditional on financing and inspection and what’s called a status certificate (as it was a condo town). We sent the paperwork to the bank and she cleared financing with no issues and we booked the home inspection for the day after I returned.
It was in the fall when the transaction took place so my inspector had no problem going on the roof etc. Everything looked great at first glance. The home had recently been renovated with new floors, trim, new kitchen, windows etc., and we really thought inspection wouldn’t be an issue. BUT, inspection turned out to be a huge issue. In this particular subdivision the main heat source for the homes was baseboard heaters. Most of the time homeowners have a tendency to hide baseboard heaters behind couches and curtains which is something they really shouldn’t do due to fire hazard issues but more often than not it happens. So, when we looked through the home we realized that when the owners renovated they installed new baseboards right over the outlets for the heaters and didn’t put the heaters back in. In a nutshell, there was no heat in the house accept for a gas fireplace in the family room. Actually, it did have 2 baseboard heaters – both in the bathrooms which is another big shock and fire hazard that had to be addressed.
We discussed the results of the inspection and my client was still interested as long as the seller was willing to take a dollar amount off of the purchase price that would be enough to cover the cost of having them installed. We thought there’s no way anyone would buy a property with our winter climate without heat in the home. Not only is the thought crazy but building code says there must be a heat source in every room. I contacted their agent and they offered to take a very small amount off, not nearly enough to cover the work. I thought this seemed fishy. We decided to walk away from the deal if the reduction wasn’t larger. The agent refused and asked us to write up a mutual release for the deal asap. We did and the home was back on the market the next day. Later that afternoon the home showed up as sold conditionally again but this time it was only conditional on financing. I knew there was something up so I decided to watch it and see who the other agent was when it firmed up. Sure enough it was the listing agent acting on both sides of the deal. My theory was he knew about the baseboard heaters due to our inspection but didn’t tell his buyers about it and reassured them nothing was wrong with the house. That’s why he didn’t want to negotiate with us on a reasonable price reduction and that’s why he wanted us to back out of the deal asap. He already had his own client waiting in the wings and wanted to make more commission.
These poor people thought they would get a “deal” by going directly to the listing agent without using an agent to represent their side. They ended up paying the same as our offer and got a house with no heat. I’m not saying all agents are like this but it just goes to show that you really have to be careful when buying a home and it really does help having someone you can trust look out for your interests.
In the end I found a great condo town in Milton about a month later for my client and she lived happily ever after.
Just as a side note, there are a multitude of excellent realtors on this board and I would very highly doubt that any of them would do this to any of their clients. Miltonians are very lucky to have them.
Cliff
_________________
Cliff Barron
Selling in Milton for over 14 years!
Sutton Group - Summit Realty Inc. Brokerage
#1, 07-18 company wide!
cbarron@sutton.comhttp://www.callcliff.ca905-286-5888
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