Fate

Carolsue, who is familiar with my former agent, asked me why I don't write about her. I am not sure I really want to open up that can of worms. She is a mixed blessing of sorts. She motivated me to start what I was doing over there. But, eventually she seemed to only have dollar signs in her eyes. Maybe she had dollar signs in her eyes all along. I just didn't notice.

Other than her terrible temper, my other big complaint about her is the lack of fiduciary responsibility I saw towards the end. For those of you who don't bandy around phrases like "fiduciary responsibility" on a regular basis, it simply means, she wasn't acting in my best interest and wasn't putting my needs (her client) above her own.

For example, the house in Moody has one bathroom--even though I repeatedly and specifically told her I never want one bathroom homes. I did not know this one had one bathroom until a two years after I owned it. As she knew this was important to me, in my estimation, she purposely misled me. I also know she got a higher than average commission for this sale.

Could I sue? Probably. Would I win? Maybe. Would it be worth the hassle of doing this? Maybe. Do I have the money? No. Do I own the house and do I have some benefit from it? Yes. Does it change the fact--in my mind--she did me wrong? No.

As a real estate agent, I understand the importance of fiduciary responsibility. This week I have been dealing with a transaction that screeched "ethics complaint" if I did nothing. Instead, everyone in a ten mile radius has been involved and I spent eight weeks of my life in a two hour time span Friday afternoon on a conference call defending my client and our contract.

I am probably defending him out of buying a home. Which means I don't get a commission if he backs out. But, I would rather he made that decision than have an unhappy home owner. And, to do anything less would be breaching my fiduciary responsibility.

If my agent had acted that way with me, she might still be my agent. I really just needed someone to go to bat for me. Maybe in the long run it worked out best anyway. Because of her avarice, I lucked out and found Jack.