Susan McGougan - www.homesnanaimo.ca, a ReMax of Nanaimo realtor, is guilty of unethical behaviour, negligence and incompetence (professional misconduct). She failed to protect her clients' interest or fairly represent the situation to potential purchasers in order to make a commission as quickly as possible.
I went to see 266 Frankies Place, a rancher in Nanaimo with my realtor. I loved it and asked my realtor to set up a 2nd viewing with an intent to submit an offer. Unbeknown to either of us, however, someone had already submitted an offer on the property the morning of our day of viewing, yet Susan McGougan had negligently failed to inform us of this, so when he went to set up the 2nd viewing found about it too late.
I am British and in England we can "gazump", which means that up until the day the purchaser moves in, we can offer the seller more money to sell the property to us instead. Unfortunately, the laws are different in Canada, which means that it is far more vital that a potential purchaser is informed of the status of the situation.
In desperation and not knowing what else to do, I knocked on the sellers' door and told them what had happened, and that as a result, I had lost the chance to make an offer on the property, which meant that they had lost the opportunity to make more money on it as 2 potential purchasers could have ended up bidding each other up. I also told them I felt that their property was seriously undervalued compared to the many others I had seen and that Susan, their realtor, had underpriced it. I gave them some examples. Les & Debbie, the sellers, were v. upset by all this information. They said that they had been inundated with viewings, but had felt "a tremendous amount of pressure" to accept it, but said they would talk to their realtor, Susan McGougan the next day to see what they could do as they were v. sympathetic to my situation.
The following morning my realtor called me to say that Les & Debbie had not actually submitted the contract and were now refusing to hand it back, which meant that I had the chance to submit an offer after all! I raced to my realtor's office and put in an offer that was $3000 above the asking price of $325, 000 and had fewer subject removals, but to my horror I received a call from my realtor to say that Les & Debbie had decided to go with the other side after all for reasons that had nothing to do with money. I subsequently discovered that although the contract had not been submitted, the person who had put in the original offer had instructed a lawyer to coerce, bludgeon and frighten Les & Debbie into returning the contract on the basis of their verbal agreement, something that would hold no water at all in the UK.
Since then I have unsuccessfully tried to seek assistance from several lawyers and have been so distressed over the unfairness of the situation that my health has plummeted. As I have MS (multiple sclerosis), this has dire implications and potential consequences. The rancher was quite gorgeous and despite seeing 100s of other properties, have been unable to find anything like it, especially for the price. It was the perfect size (3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and 1350 sq ft) and had the perfect interior in terms of both layout and colour scheme - light laminate flooring and neutral tones of paint throughout, a maple kitchen with tons of storage that is totally rare in Canada,
Debbie
NANAIMO, British Columbia
Canada
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