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Legal Hotline: Scam Alert - June 3 2022

Hi i'm Annie Fitzsimmons i'm your Washington realtors legal hotline lawyer and
this is a scam alert video vacant house listed buyer comes along buys the
house everybody's moving towards closing everybody's happy in this in this
transaction it's not often we have happy buyers and sellers in the videos
that we're making but in this case we have a happy buyer and seller until a
scam artist runs an online ad advertising the seller's home for rent and the
scam artist ends up leasing sellers home to a tenant lease agreement is
signed money is paid from the tenant to the scam artist and the scam artist
gives access to sellers home to the tenant who moves in now before you start
saying well how could that happen how do they get access to the home to give
it the answer is i don't know but this has happened so listing brokers and
buyer brokers if the subject matter of your transaction is a vacant home
somebody needs to be paying attention to it recommend to your client buyer or
seller if either or both of them are in the neighborhood in the area
recommend to them that they drive by the house often to check and make sure
nobody's living there because the longer somebody is there the harder it's
going to be to get them out listing broker and buyer broker if neither the
buyer bro neither the buyer nor the seller are in the area then this is not
your job this is not part of the duty of a broker but when you're in the area
make a point of going by the house check on the house as often as you can to
make sure nobody's living in sellers vacant home that buyer intends to
purchase and occupy because your client whether it's the buyer or the seller
their plans will be thwarted if somebody moves into that home believing they
have a right to be there they aren't necessarily a tenant under the landlord
tenant act but the parties are still going to have a terrible time with lots
of time and expense consumed getting that person out of the house visit the
legal hotline at warrealtor.org and send me a question thank you for being a
Washington realtors member.