Here's a good one for you. Two realtors from Prudential, Fox & Roach's Margate, NJ office were involved in my purchase of a home. They are Mark Arbeit and Louis Solomon; Arbeit represented me and my wife, Solomon represented my seller, who is a licensed NJ Mortgage Solicitor notwithstanding the fact he is a convicted criminal. The MLS description for my home explicitly indicated that my seller had completed a standard NJ Seller's form. These forms cover in great detail the subject of underground oil tanks. My seller and his wife represented in our Sale Agreement that they knew nothing of any oil tank in the home in which they lived for roughly nine years.
Well, of course the place had an oil tank, and a leaking, underground one at that. I found it nine days after I moved in; it was in a small concealed shed, back-to-back with a much larger shed. My first step was to ask Pru-Fox for a copy of my seller's disclosure form, which, again, had been advertised as having been completed. Pru-Fox's response? The form really hadn't been completed. What about the MLS entry? Oh, that was a mistake, a, um, typo! Yeah. A typo! OK. Next step? Realtors keep detailed lists of prospective buyers who go through their properties in order to protect their commissions. I asked for the list for my place, certain that some potential buyer smarter than I had discovered the tank and mentioned it to Solomon or my seller. Pru-Fox's response? Look, we're all really sorry, but you own the place now, so just beat it.
I later found information on my seller's criminal conviction on the internet. I also did a Google search on my realtor, Arbeit. That search led me to stories in The Washington Post archives for June 20, 25 and 26,1987. Seems that Arbeit used to be an assistant elementary school principal down in Virginia but was bounced from the post when it came to light that he had been convicted of offering a 14-year old boy money to pose naked for him, and that he had been calling schoolboys in the middle of the night, asking them sexually oriented questions. I went to NJ authorities with this information on my seller and Arbeit. Asked NJ's Division of Banking & Insurance to revoke my seller's license on account of his criminal conviction; asked NJ's Real Estate Commission to revoke Arbeit's license because his misadventures in Virginia proved he lacked "good character." The authorities' responses? They couldn't have cared less.
i would love to see some enterprising reporter look into the issue of just how many licensed "Real Estate Professionals" we have running around New Jersey with histories similar to those of Arbeit and my seller. The authorities seem to have an attitude that we'll never get going another "Housing Boom" unless we have characters like Arbeit and my seller out there working the rubes. I don't think this is very good policy; NJ bureaucrats obviously think otherwise.
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