Sunday, August 13, 2006

Realtor or Intruder?

A very creepy thing happened last week. As you know, our townhome is currently for sale and we have a lockbox, something I’ve never been quite comfortable with, but was willing to trust the process for the sake a selling my home. As time went on, I became more easy about it—until this happened:

It’s not often D is at home at 4 pm in the afternoon during the week, but thank god it happened to him and not me. D’s sitting on the couch (Ry's napping) when the lock turns on our front door and a random guy wearing a football jersey and a baseball cap waltzes in. He sees D and freezes. D says, “Can I help you?” He replies, “Sorry man, I thought this place was vacant.” D proceeds to ask him if he tried to call, why he didn’t knock, if he had clients, if he had a card, etc. Turns out he doesn’t have a card on him, so he goes to his car to get one (at this point D is thinking that if he doesn’t produce a card in 20 seconds he was going to call the police). The guy does come back with a card with his picture on it and the name of the mortgage company he works for. He was extremely apologetic.

So D contacts our realtor, who investigates and finds out that Intruder’s boss loaned him his lockbox key so that he could show a place he bought to his sister and his mother. But he took the liberty to look at comps, but apparently doesn't know realtor protocol, BECAUSE HE'S NOT A REALTOR. According to our realtor, the Guy Who Owns the Lockbox Key, was also extremely apologetic (as he should be) and wanted to do "something to make it right” and offered to buy us dinner.

There’s nothing he can do to make it right (outside of buying our place over asking price). Now, we've taken the lockbox off. Which totally sucks for us, since now, it could take longer to sell our home. We may come up with an alternate plan, like having deadbolts installed that can only be unlocked from the inside and have Guy Who Owns the Lockbox Key pay for it and then we keep the lockbox. This solves the problem of our personal safety, but not that of our personal property. After this incident, it makes you wonder who could be in our home doing who knows what at any given moment. And, you wouldn't know about it, especially since this guy had no intention of leaving his card.

But the bigger question is, and this is what I need your help on: should Guy Who Owns the Lockbox Key be reported to the realtor board and face potentially loosing his license over this? What I’m trying to get my head around is whether or not something shady was going on or just extreme stupidity. In any respect, it’s against realtor ethics to lend out your key, so he’s already done something wrong not to mention idiotic. I'd hate myself if someone got hurt becuase I didn't report a potential scam, but I also wonder how much one should have to pay for an err in judgement, if that was in fact going on. Need your input, anyone and everyone.

2 comments:

Seattle Sun said...

Oh dear! I've been thinking about this since I read your post yesterday. How creepy.

My first thought was that you should report them, but the more I think about it, I think it sounds like a dumb, dumb mistake. If it was a scam I figure they would have a smoother story.

But if you do decide to report it, you would be totally justified in doing so.

Argh! Not what you needed.

Multicultural Arts Leadership Initiative said...

UGH! I just swung your situation by two realtor friends of mine. They emphatically said, "REPORT that BOZO! He is exactly what gives this profession a bad name." They suggested that you report to local realtor board and mls listings. They promised to forward the contact info.

Geez, what a creepy situation. I think you HAVE to report it - what keeps them from doing it again? and what if you were sleepin' or coming our of the shower. Geez! You and D were rightfully pissed at the guy! I, too, was not sure of what you should do - but my friends were clear that those losers should have known better. BTW- you should also be able to expect that your realtor should be raisin' heck on her end too. Hope she has been supportive.

I'm so sorry this had to happen to you. I am SURE The house will sell soon. It is beautiful. It took us 30 agonizing days! which as you know feels like forever in our market.