Real Estate Agent Lies About Employment Opportunity

Q: My husband lives in one state and I live in another. We want to live together and a real estate agent promised to help find my husband a job where I live.
 

We were rushed into buying a home because the agent said the job promised to my husband would not wait.

The day after we signed the final papers and purchased the home, my husband called the job and was told there was no job for him. The agent and the mortgage lady who works with him won’t return any of our calls and we have no idea when the sellers of our house will move out of the house we purchased.

We can’t get answers to any of our questions and we are getting deeper in debt. What can we do?

A: Your real estate agent is in the business of buying and selling real estate and should never have promised to help your husband find a job. You may wish to file a complaint with the agency that regulates real estate brokers in the state in which you are located.

You may also consider filing a complaint with the local Realtor board, if your agent is a member. There is also a National Association of Realtors, based in Chicago, Illinois, and you can file a complaint there as well.

Finally, you should review the loan documents that you signed at the closing. If the mortgage broker listed your husband’s employment with this new company, the mortgage broker might have been in on the arrangement and you may wish to investigate this aspect further.

To get the loan approved, the loan officer must have had to verify your husband’s employment. If the verification of employment was with the prospective employer, the mortgage broker was either innocently involved or the employer is involved in a situation where they put false information into a mortgage application.

This would be considered mortgage fraud, and the authorities don’t look too kindly on mortgage lenders, loan officers and real estate agents who put fake data onto loan applications.

If there was a scheme involved, it could have involved the real estate agent, the lender and the prospective employer. If it was a scheme, then you need to contact the proper authorities to make sure other people are not affected in the way you were. You should also contact an attorney to assist you in helping you get out of the mess that you appear to be in.

A word of caution for next time: If you or your husband are ever “promised” a job and are pushed into making a huge financial purchase based on this promise, check out the situation ahead of time. You could have easily called the job to see what it was and what had been promised before you closed on the home, and saved yourself a lot of heartache and hassle.

Good luck.

Samuel J. Tamkin is a Chicago-based real estate attorney. Ilyce R. Glink’s latest book is 50 Simple Steps You Can Take To Sell Your Home Faster and For More Money In Any Market. If you have questions for them, write: Real Estate Matters Syndicate, PO Box 366, Glencoe, IL 60022 or contact them through Ilyce’s website www.thinkglink.com