We were buyers on a transaction for which Sandie Hea was the listing agent…read more
We have purchased a few properties here in the US (in both California and Missouri) and out of the country (in Costa Rica). In fact, for a little over 2 years I worked in a very busy CA real estate office as both part of the transaction process and in the escrow department. We are no strangers to how transactions can and should go. Working with Sandie Hea blew all of those norms to smithereens.
Throughout the process she was disrespectful and either deceitful or poorly informed. Kindness forces me to consider that she just didn't really understand what the seller wanted but if I weren't being kind, I would say that her behavior during the transaction was potentially deliberately deceitful and ethically corrupt.
Her communications to our agent were rude, unprofessional, and when it mattered, on issues of real transactional substance, were, at best, poorly considered, and at worse, intentional deceptions.
If something crazy happens and Sandie Hea is the only agent available in the world to work with, if my husband and ever decide to sell our house, the only contact with her I would have would be to ask her to move so that I could reach the For Sale By Owner sign.
And for clarity's sake, I'm in St. Louis, though my description suggests I'm in SF.
*** Below is an edit to my initial review based on Sandie Hea's comments ***
To clarify, I didn't say you communicated with us. I said the way you communicated was disrespectful, unprofessional, and potentially duplicitous. Your response that says you never communicated directly with us is true. But you must be aware that I am aware of how you communicated with our agent, the words you used and the tone of those words. Therefore, you must be aware that I know you were unprofessional and disrespectful to our agent. Like, you get that, right?
So when you told my agent that the seller was filing an insurance claim and repairing the roof based on our Request for Repairs, and then later had us pick out a color for the roof tiles, we took you at your word that a new roof would be installed prior to close of escrow. There was no "confusion" as you suggest in your response. It was clear. You said that.
But you never provided the approval on the request for repairs, despite being asked multiple times. You never had your seller sign it.
But on the last day of contingency removal, rather late in the day, you informed our agent that the seller was NOT going to be repairing the roof after-all, despite what you very clearly said, and despite having a roofer ready to go and an approved insurance claim already processed. So when you defend your actions by saying you were only doing what the law requires, which is to do what your client wants, you're basically saying it was the seller's idea to offer us less than 50% of the actual cost of the roof replacement, and at the 11th hour.
You're basically saying that it was the seller's idea to, if we didn't agree by the end of that night, re-list the property for sale?
You're basically saying that it was the seller's idea to go ahead and process the insurance claim and pocket the money rather than actually fix the roof, costing us even more money in the transaction.
You're basically saying that these were all the seller's ideas, despite having a professional roofer and insurance inspector tell the seller that the roof needed to be replaced, that you didn't advise, suggest, or otherwise navigate a course of action?
How stupid do you think we are? How little regard you must have for other people. I stand by my review, and, while well crafted, your response fails to address what I said. All it does, and I mean ALL it does, is deflect from two core realities:
You communicated horribly and unprofessionally during this transaction.
You behaved in ways that are, at best, ethically blurry, and, at worst, broke MLS guidelines and violated national standards for Realtors.
