Need some advise dealing with agent from hell

[Tony Sepassi]

This is long but here it goes:

I hired this real estate agent to sell my property back in November 2013

In Mid January I get a call from him that there is water coming into my neighbors townhouse, so he went to check to see what was going on with the property. It turned out the property wasn't winterized and a pipe had burst in the first floor. The fire department came and turned the water off. We had just put new carpet in the first floor and new paint, so the next day or so had a guy come out and replaced the new carpet again and another guy replaced the burst pipe and put in a dry wall and paint the bathroom since that is where the pipe burst from. I wanted to file a claim with my insurance company but the agent told me not to file a claim with the insurance company since then the insurance company will know about it and the buyer agent can find that out and it would detract from the value of the house. Almost 4 months had gone by and I wasn't happy with him since he never contacted me and keep in the loop with what is going on other than a website he gave me a link to and a password to check what is going on which he hardly updated. So on April 28th I gave him my 3 days notice to delist the house and that I will have to go with another agent. This is 3 weeks before the termination date and he wasn't happy and was very rude on the phone with me and with my brother via email. Since then, he has been trying to be a pain. First he had the key to the property and I emailed him that either I or someone will come by to pick up the key but he never responded and my new agent found out he had left the key in the property and locked the door. I was fortunate enough to find an extra key we had.. I found out on May 7th from my new agent that he has gone into the MLS and mentioned that the property was flooded back in January and that the fire department had to come and shut off the water, before he told me not to file a claim and now he is mentioning this on the MLS. He also has not withdrawn the property from the MLS but the status is showing "Temp Off" when it should be "Withdrawn" status because of this the new agent cannot activate my property as a new listing in the MLS. I have clearly instructed him via email on April 28th to take the property of the MLS. I have emailed him twice and texted him regarding the status on the MLS and he has not responded. Can I take legal action against him?

[Bill Gulley]

Clearly, you aren't getting along well with the old agent. Did you ever call his broker? You can call the Board of Realtors, ask them to clear the MLS listing and file your complaints. You can also call the State RE Commission and ask to file a complaint. Your new agent should be demanding that the listing be pulled too as it prevent them from working.

Look at your listing agreement with the old agent, how is the agreement to be terminated? What notices must be given and how? Do emails constitute the proper means to give notice or are you writing to some virtual agent in the cloud?

If the place was flooded, that needs to be disclosed by you and the agent.

Maybe the old agent is expecting to get hammered on the flood matter and just running away from the issue, not the way to address it, sometimes a broker will say stop communicating with this guy, that could be where you are while they wait for notice of a suit. So a conversation with that broker might help.

We are going into the summer so price it right and get it gone.

If you want to take legal action be prepared to write a check to an attorney, you'll need to justify your financial loss and you might find that can be hard to do, it could cost you more than it's worth too. :)