'I played the long game to get the ultimate revenge on a real estate agent.'

"Oh I played the long game."

I am by no means an expert, or pro, at revenge but I am a patient person. I disclosed this to a friend and they directed me here. 7 years ago I was lucky enough to be able to buy my own place, I had saved for 10 years, worked my butt off, and I was so happy to be able to have a place to call my own.

Now, being a single person on the mortgage meant I had to make compromises, one such compromise was buying a property on a shared block (a lot cheaper). Where I'm from, this usually means it's on a "strata" title. For some, that's a bonus as it means there's a communal fund for repairs, typically insurance is cheaper as it's collective, and other things like maintenance being taken care of.

Strata titles also come with a lot of by-laws and restrictions on what you can and can't do. I'm a pretty private and introverted person so having to deal with people and have limits on how I live was a no-no. I took my time, found the perfect property. Shared block but freehold title.

Only thing that was I needed to pay public liability insurance for the shared walkway on the property (split equally between owners). The real estate agent is local to my area, there's also about 3-degrees of separation between us, he has friends who are friends with my friends type of thing, didn't know him, but knew of him, so that sorta felt good too.

About 5 months after I move in, I get a knock on the door from the owner (landlord) of the property next to me to discuss insurance. Not a problem, I ask for a copy of the policy so I have a record. It gets sent through and low and behold it's for strata insurance.

I was incredibly confused, and after much back and forth the property isn't a free-hold title but a strata title. I called my lawyer who conveyed the title etc. He was dumbfounded but over all did the right thing and made things as right as they could. I arranged for a meeting with the real estate agent.

I brought emails and printouts of the ads they had all saying it was free hold, emails between the real estate agent and my lawyer discussing it's freehold status, despite it being in absolute black and white he refused to accept any fault or offer anything to make things right. I don't begrudge that, he's looking out for himself, I get that. However I wouldn't forget it.

I did enter into mediation with the real estate agent and all I asked for was, when the time came for me to sell, they'd do it or cover the costs. I thought this was reasonable, but they flat out refused offered me 1k to go away, which I refused.

I had the option to pursue them legally (and was advised by the mediator to do so) but ultimately I decided against it for a few reasons, the main one being my health at the time. So I planned and plotted, and I schemed and connived as to how to get back at this son-of-a-bitch. And I settled on this.

I found his personal Facebook page which wasn't set to private, saw some photos of a "Boys on Tour" trip he went on a few weeks prior (so about 5-6 months after I bought the property). I also found his address through a business registration search. On the anniversary of the sale, for 6 years straight, I sent them flowers with a note :-)

"Dear Real Estate Agent
Remembering you, on this, our special day.
She has your eyes.
Love Elle"

They varied ever so slightly over the years but always had "on this our special day" and some weird inference to a love child and a desire to reconnect. I also from time to time arranged for postcards and letters to be sent from another country, the one he was "On Tour" in, always signed "Love Elle".

I learned about three weeks ago that this guy had recently divorced, lost his home and is not longer working as a real estate agent. His wife had found out he cheated on her. The story I was told (through said friends of friends) went along the lines of "He would get weird gifts and flowers every year, same day, every year."

"She (his wife) finally put two and two together and realised what the date was and he admitted to cheating on her." Now, I didn't mean for this, but it turns out a year before I bought my house he had gone on holiday, came back with an STD, gave it to his wife but somehow convinced her that it wasn't him.

As such "our special day" turned out to be right around the time he'd have been balls deep, sans condom, in someone who wasn't his wife, only one year earlier. He's apparently lost his house, half his retirement savings and also his business. I do feel a little bit guilty about all of it sometimes, but then I'm reminded that he's a scumbag and that Karma, like me, is a patient, spiteful and vengeful b***h.

Here's what people had to say to OP:

sledge313 wrote:

Awesome revenge. However, your title attorney sucks. They should have caught that.

OnThisOurDay OP responded:

I agree 100%, to be fair to them, they accepted fault and were incredibly apologetic. It was one of those "title hadn't been set up correctly", which caused confusion.

Joker8392 wrote:

I don’t know what you’re saying about the real estate, but it sounds like you bought something you shouldn’t have. You found the perfect property. Then your lawyers went through it.

Then somehow it was wrong? Then because of your health you won’t sue? I mean I wouldn’t sue because that lawyer you have sucked, but I couldn’t see a law firm not backing their name that they can’t handle simple real estate contracts correctly.

OnThisOurDay OP responded:

Agreed my lawyer dropped the ball and they paid the price, but were at least honest about their f**k up.

There's some more to the story about what the real estate agent actually knew and why they were deceptive.

But didn't go into too much as the post was long enough. It essentially stems from the type of property it is and how the strata title was established, as well as how and why the original title was established. You actually can't (or couldn't back when I purchased) find the strata title the usual way (address search).

The type of title was done in my city for a short period and it was to encourage many of the larger blocks of property to subdivide and build another home on. But the Provincial government deemed it unlawful (as they didn't get a cut of the titling and stamp fees etc). They were grandfathered and I actually had to go through the process of re-titling (kind of) it a year or two ago.

The real estate agent knew all of this and flat out lied when queried on it during settlement. He also convinced my lawyer (again the lawyer's fault) against requesting the "real" documents as it would've taken literally another month (physical copies kept in an archive somewhere) by providing "certified" copies of the current title (which didn't show the notice of amended strata) on them.

When you request a copy of an original, the copy gets physically stamped with the date and time by the archivist, it then gets another stamp with the archivist's details (known as the city stamp).

The certified copy that my lawyer received (from the agent) was the one from "just before" the property was subdivided, which we can tell from the city stamp (as the title holder I requested all the info which came with a who what when and why list of copies/access).

However, the date stamp was for a month or so prior to sale. The agent is on the record as having accessed the title the day of the date. I believe that they had the pre-subdivision title from the owners, and the one they requested while selling the property.

Photoshop ensued and the date stamp from the "new" title was put onto the "old" title to make it look like there wasn't a strata. The agent claims that the scans got corrupted or some bullshit but I know what the prick did. Again more to it and message me and I'll tell you the whole story.

As for my health, I had to have several surgeries sadly which were not fun. I was also employed full time, as well as caring for my Father (cancer, died about 1.5 years after I bought the property). I was eventually made financially whole (mostly) from a settlement with my lawyer, I didn't ask for money (directly) from the agent, just for them to sell it or pay for someone else to do it when the time came.

At the time, I still thought they had made a silly but honest mistake but as more emails and data/evidence was shared it became clear to me that this wasn't the case. With all of those things in mind, at the time I just didn't have the energy. Hope that explains it a bit more.

hotlavatube wrote:

I'm kinda reminded of my dad's story from highschool back in the 1940s. Apparently he had this PE teacher that'd force them to do baton excercises each day. This involved posing with a baton--baton up, baton down, baton left, etc.

The students were pretty fed up with it, and wanted it to stop. Thus, they pooled their knowledge. They knew the teacher had recently married and they knew what car he drove--a nice red convertible. Apparently that was enough.

A group of these miscreants raided the lost and found for the women's lockeroom and began sneaking articles into the passenger seat of the teacher's convertible in places where the new wife might happen upon it.

A stray lipstick here, a spare panties crammed there, a bikini stuffed under the seat, and so forth. Apparently it didn't take long to have an effect. The new wife forced her husband to relocate to another district where he wouldn't be near whatever hussie he was cheating on her with. And thus ended the inane baton practice PE.

Quick bonus story: The kids at dad's school used to like to skip out through a hole in the fence between classes. (Dad used to smoke cigarettes but had to stop when they raised the price a nickel and he couldn't carry that many pop bottles) Anyhow, there was one teacher that'd patrol the perimeter to catch them. Apparently, someone had the idea to dig a trap pit and cover it with twigs leaves.

They watched the teacher perform their round... walking, walking, walking, walking, oops! gone. Thankfully they didn't line the pit with punji sticks. The teacher was fine, but it did stop the perimeter patrols for a time. A lot of dad's stories from his childhood sounded like things that'd get kids arrested these days. It was definitely a different time!