All Forum Posts by: Kent Harris

I am wondering if Phil Pustejovsky would work with me if I can fund my own deals? He seems to be very knowledgeable. My problem is contractors. I had to let two of them go this week. The one I was supposed to interview his truck broke down on the way to the interview. 

 In Texas the Department of Real Estate is called TREC (Texas Real Estate Commission). I want to do that as last resort. TREC has setup a fund for Customers who have been defrauded   by Realtors up to $50,000 or $100,000 per Realtor. The Realtor only get there license back when they reimburse TREC. https://www.trec.texas.gov/public/real-estate-recovery-funds

 What would have popped up is he got sued by a previous Landlord. In Smart Move it would have shown the judgement. I would have been able to lookup the court case in public records.

 I haven't done the tax write off yet. I am also angry because she also got me a Tenant that did $15,000 worth of Damage to one of my rental properties. (He was a pack rat). Why should she not be accountable for her actions. She will keep doing it to other people. My wife replied "Not your problem!" 

Matt, 

I can always send him a 1099 at the end of the year for the $8,000. That won't take much effort. Realtors are not all that bad as long as you use the right one. I'm about to get my Real Estate license. I will be working mostly with investors that don't have time to find deals on there own. Since I have a listing agreement with the right Realtor and do all the work myself then things turn out really good. I have been doing it myself since November and since then have not had any evictions. The other reason for getting my license is when I have a vacancy I usually have 8-10 applicants on each property. With my license I can find other rentals and collect a commission. The other reason is if I sell a house I don't have to pay the full 6% commission. I will get most of the 3% back after broker fees. Yes I have learned my lesson, Trust but verify everything a Realtor tells you. The last house I purchased was through a Realtor and got a house 60% below market.  

 The fact of the matter is she had me pay her directly instead of her broker. My intentions are not to have her license taken away. My intentions are to cover my losses. Me paying her directly is documented since I had given her company checks and she cashed them. It may be a he said, she said situation, except if she doesn't reach a settlement I could quickly go to TREC and file on her for paying her directly and discrimination against a handicapped person. (You can't tell a handicapped person. "This might not be the right house for you since all the bedrooms are upstairs.")  I will let her clearly know that if she wants to weasel out of it. It won't be in her best interest. 

 If a person is up front about moving out before there lease expires, I charge them 3 months rent, technically 2 since I keep the deposit. In the case where I filed an eviction and was counter sued for discrimination against an elderly person, and he had hired an attorney. I requested to the judge that he give me the full amount that was due on the lease agreement, and it was granted. The thing about Eviction court you have to keep the amount your asking for under $10,000 or you will have to hire an attorney. In the case where the person owes me $8,000 and he told me to go fly a kite. I'm going to give him a 1099 at the end of the year and get $2,400 off my taxes next year. 

 A few times she had me make the checks out to her directly. This was before I went to Real Estate School to get my license. She is a Realtor. I had sent a letter to her new broker and he never respond. Didn't mention to the broker that I had paid her directly on some rental listings. Was going to keep that Ace in my pocket until the time comes.

Since she has worked for two different brokers during this period I would file with the two different E&O policies? Each one being the separate violations? Also how do you find out the name of the Insurance companies where the brokers have the E&O insurance?

When I first started purchasing houses I had a Realtor find me a lot of deals. Once the houses were renovated I had her put the houses up for Lease on MLS. She would have the prospective tenants run a background check on themselves, which was fine to do the preliminary screening. I told the Realtor that she needed to run a background check once they qualified. This never happened. One of the tenants I had to take to eviction court which we got an $8,000 judgement and was counter sued for discrimination against an elderly person, which was thrown out of court. After running a background check through a Private Investigator ($150) we found all sorts of things that would have prevented me from leasing to him.

Is the Realtor liable for not running the background check as requested? There are a lot of TREC rules that she has violated. If I went to them she would probably lose her license. What I'm looking for is the money I lost and nothing else.

After all this drama I started listing my own properties and using a company called www.MySmartMove.com to do the background checks. in the past 6 months I have not had any problems with my tenants, pertaining to Evictions or braking the lease.