ETHICS IN REAL ESTATE

I know the title sounds like a bit of a joke to many, but there ARE Realtors out there who care and carry themselves and their business with honesty and integrity. Really. But too often we hear about the “bad apples” and there are more than a few of those. Recently a brokerage was in the headlines for all the wrong reasons. Their trust account was audited and the was a $10 million dollar shortfall. The case is still under investigation but may have also cost one of the higher ups his job at RECO, the governing body. All of this got me to thinking about a story that floated around a few years ago and I was told numerous times it was the truth, despite how insanely idiotic it was. An agent had a client looking to rent a place. Yes, that’s what makes this all the crazier. It wasn’t even a buy or sale. At any rate they found her ideal place and put in an offer to lease. As part of the listing it was required that she give a letter of employment and 3 references plus the other standard stuff. She was unemployed. So the agent thought it would be a brilliant idea to write a bogus letter of employment himself. So that’s what he did. And to really make things kooky he came up with a fake company title but listed HIMSELF as the person in charge and for reference gave his personal cell phone number as the person to contact in case anything went sideways. Which at this point we knew was going to happen. She was the successful applicant for the home and moved in right away. A month went by and she didn’t pay rent. Then two months with no rent. Finally, after the third month with no rent payment, the landlord had enough so guess what he did? Yep, he called the number and lo and behold there was the Realtor on the other end. Needless to say he found this quite confusing but once he sorted out the scam he reported the Realtor and the guilty non-paying renter. This went up the ladder until it was reported to and investigated by RECO. Net result was the Realtor was fined a very healthy sum (the fines are usually in the 10K-25K range for egregious actions) and was also required to complete an ethics course to remind him of his fiduciary duties. All of this could easily have been avoided if he had just played by the rules. No employment? No gig. But what made this even crazier is he stood to possibly make $1,500.00 for all this grief. One half a month’s rent. So you tell me was it worth it? Damaging reputation and risking all that you had over some silly stuff like this? Shouldn’t even be a point of discussion. We always need to hold ourselves to a higher standard. And if you never lie you never have to remember what you said. Pretty basic principles I would say.

Feel free to check out this story and more on my blog site at: https://slackie14.wixsite.com/buy-sell-and-more