Do I have a case against this realtor?

Question

My fiance and I gave a realtor an earnest check for a $1000 dollars for a home we were thinking of purchasing. Well when things fell through with the mortgage company we asked for our money back! A month later after chasing the realtor we finally got a check. He actually met my fiance in person at a hobby lobby and gave him the check. Well we deposited the check into our bank account three weeks later our account is negative almost $2000 dollars. We didn't know what was going on. We then found out the check he wrote us from him and his wifes OWN personal bank account didnt go through. My personal banker called his bank and his bank said he stopped the check! We called him for two weeks straight and he wouldn't call me back. He finally picked up and said he would return our money in cash! But all he could give was $1000. I told my fiance to tell him to give us the cash and make him sign a letter to give us the other thousand back as well in two weeks because he caused all sorts of NSf.

Answer 1

Call his broker.    The check you want is actually written by the title company, and does take a little while.

But, stop bugging him and go to the broker, he is the one you would sue anyway, not his agent.

Answer 2

This doesn't make sense because even if he stopped payment on the $1,000 check, your account wouldn't have gone "almost $2,000 negative" unless you had some other problems.  No bank will charge the recipient of a cancelled check double the amount of the original check in charges!  They would charge HIM for cancelling the check.  Even if you had detrimentally relied on the check and had written other checks on the account which bounced, the charges would not have added up to anywhere near this much.

Your best bet would be not to accept the $1000 and to sue him in small claims court for the full amount, but be sure that you can account for exactly how he cost you any of the money.

Answer 3

First report him to the Real Estate Comission so he loses his license.  And second, go to small claims court or in front of a jp depending on where you live.  You may win the case but making him pay may still be impossible.  I would report him to the police and try criminally charging him with fraud.  Fraud requires a crime and intent and what he is doing is wrong but they may say it is civil.  I don't know so if you don't get the right answer from one policeman, talk to another.  Just keep after him and knocking on his door should be in the plan.  If he gives you another check, you can call his bank and see if he has funds and then go directly to his bank to cash it.  Whatever you can get off of him take it because it is probably all you will get, then police, then court.  Good luck.  You aren't the first person he has conned.  

I also think that escrow money is supposed to be put in a special account, not a personal account and you should have been paid out of some type of escrow account.  He is real wrong.  Go get him and get him good.

Answer 4

Go directly to his broker and discuss the problem.

There are several problems here:

1. Your deposit should have been deposited into the brokers escrow account.  And the refund paid from this account.  There are strict state laws on this.  The agent and the broker could lose their license.

2. It appears that the agent took your deposit and spent it.  This is why he had to write a personal check.  I can't think of any reason this would have happen.

3. If the agent is also the broker, there is a problem (see # 1 and # 2 above).

4.  In order for you deposit to be refunded, the seller needs to sign a release.  You didn't say this happen.

5. Before I would go to the broker, I would have a list of your expenses that this caused you and demand full payment.

6. If the agent did take the money,  I would report the real estate company, the agent and the broker (for not over seeing the affairs of the office better).

Something wrong happen here.