Update: Wall Street Journal Finance magazine is featuring our story. Exciting!!!
UPDATE: Dear Alain Pinel lawyers, we have an overwhelming amount of evidence to prove that every bit of statement we made on this website is fact-based. We are merely exercising our First Amendment rights. Please let us know if you want us to share more information. We'd be happy to make those public as well.
Alain Pinel Realtors had two of their agents list the home we purchased in San Mateo County, California. When we started working with Alain Pinel, they assured us that they would keep both sides fair and perform their fiduciary duties by assigning two different listing agents to both parties. Our offer was accepted by the sellers and we became in contract.
One week later, the appraisal report came back showing that the house
was much smaller than the original listing. We were a bit unnerved,
but our Alain Pinel agent said that it wasn't a big deal and that these
appraisals may not be totally accurate. However, we wanted to get to the
bottom of this, so we requested that another independent measurement be done.
We hired an architect that gave us more detailed measurements, and found that
the house was 624 square feet smaller than what was advertised in the original
listing. That's as if two whole bedrooms just mysteriously vanished. Our Alain
Pinel agent and broker tried to sweep it under the rug by saying that that's what
the county records show, and that the house is still a good deal. But how could we
be ok with this if the house was almost 20% smaller than what was advertised? We felt
like we overpaid for the house, but they wouldn't do anything about it. Agents are
supposed fight for their clients, and this was the kind of thing that separates the
good agents from the bad ones, but they just made excuse after excuse. We suspected
that since our agent was also the listing agent (and was probably taking a double
commission for this deal - 2.5 percent from $1.5M dollar house), they didn't want to
acknowledge their mistake. We decided to try to re-negotiate the price with the sellers
despite them telling us to leave things well enough alone.
Since the Alain Pinel agent wouldn't help us in trying to negotiate, we had to write
letters to the sellers ourselves. And we eventually hired a lawyer to deal the negotiations.
In the middle of negotiations, the sellers suddenly sent us a letter asking to confirm that
we were buying the house at full price and somehow knew the very details about our loan status.
We were utterly confused because our lawyer was still trying to negotiate a lower price.
We then found out from our mortgage broker that our Alain Pinel agent had obtained this
information from our mortgage broker, leaked knowledge of our intent to buy the house even
if we couldn't re-negotiate to a lower price. Basically, our agent gave away our poker hand
to the sellers. When we confronted them about this, the agent denied multiple times.
Frustrated and angry, we wrote a negative review of the Alain Pinel agent on Yelp describing what happened to us. One day later, the Yelp review was filtered out and the agent's husband (a lawyer) sent us a cease and desist letter threatening to sue for defamation. In the letter, the agent implied that she did speak to the sellers about our intentions, and tried to justify it by saying that it was just part of the escrow process, which means the agent had been lying to our face. The Alain Pinel agent never asked our permission to inform the sellers of our intentions, she violated her fiduciary duty to us, and took away all of our bargaining power. We already paid thousands of dollars for our lawyer fees and we never got to negotiate with the sellers.
Our lawyer told us that we had nothing to be afraid of since everything we posted in the review was true, so we decided to leave the post on Yelp. The next day, this agent's ex-clients contacted us and told us that they, too, received a threatening letter from the agent's husband after they posted a negative review. When they confronted the agent about it, they said she denied about the letter even though it had delivery confirmation on it. To this day, the Alain Pinel agent has not apologized to us or even acknowledged the fact that their agent lied to us.
TweetAlain Pinel Broker: Ron Gable
Alain Pinel Realtor: Que Foor
Comments (38)
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PelfTellNaife
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#38 – 15 May, 2012 at 5:56 am
Joslyn
With all due respect, I strongly disagree with Henry S. Henry, I get it. You like Tom Gilliam but you are also missing the point.
Alain Pinel Realtors as a whole is accountable for all the actions their agents take. One of their VPs (in this case Ron Gable) took part in such a disastrous transaction, who holds responsibilities for it? It only takes one bad apple to destroy the company's reputation: that's why most companies provide such rigorous employee training on ethics and customer relations. Obviously Alain Pinel leadership didn't teach their agents what "lawsuit threats against their own clients" mean. Go try googling "Starbucks racism". All it takes is one bad-apple to destroy a business.
#37 – 14 May, 2012 at 3:25 pm
Henry S
I most certainly am not Tom Gilliam nor do I have any connection to Alain Pinel other than my one positive experience as a seller through the Los Altos office. I have had 10 different real estate transactions (all with other realty companies) over the years and this last one was the best experience. It certainly helped that it's a sellers market but the realtors I mentioned did their job well and with integrity.
I don't doubt the veracity of the story and it sounds like those other realtors at a difference office did a poor job to say the least but to paint all realtors at Alain Pinel with the same brush is just wrong. No doubt you can find bad apples in all companies but that doesn't necessarily make the whole company evil.
#36 – 12 May, 2012 at 4:12 pm
Tom Gilliam
LOL!!!!!! "Henry S." it's so ridiculously obvious that you are Tom Gilliam. If you need to advertise for your business, why don't you go run some ads on Google instead of wasting your time here? :-)
Thanks for putting up the website. A few months ago I ran into one horrible realtor from Alain Pinel (can't remember the name) in one of her open houses, I wish I had the guts to post about it on the internet then.
#35 – 11 May, 2012 at 8:14 pm
Henry S
Forum operators,
Every time you delete my positive post, you shoot holes in your argument. I'll post this again (for the 3rd time) and hope that you have the decency to let it stay.
I had a fantastic experience with the Los Altos, CA office of Alain Pinel. Tom Gilliam and Tim Anderson are consummate professionals. Tom Gilliam, especially, did a superb job getting the house ready for sale and bent over backwards organizing all the painters, wood workers, gardeners, and inspectors and our house sold in a few days. I can't imagine better service.
#34 – 7 May, 2012 at 11:26 pm
Anom
Lawsuits??? Way to run a business, alain pinel.
#33 – 5 May, 2012 at 2:53 pm
Greg
Thanks for sharing your experience. I for one had horrendous experience with Alain Pinel Realtors. Do not recommend these guys at all.
#32 – 25 April, 2012 at 4:29 pm
Aaron
One bad Realtor unfortunately has a lot of impact on the entire firm. This has happened in a very large blue and white company as well. Considering Realtors are "self employed". I would never hold the entire population of Realtors responsible for this.
Since I am a ethical, diligent, reliable and a non cheesy car sales agent!! I am sorry that your experience(s) were less then what I would want for myself, the agent above should no longer be able to hold a Real Estate License, in my opinion. If there was any question about size of home and had information that did not match.... The buyers agent should have helped clients run for the hills, while calling their broker and lawyer to discuss the perfect situation for their clients best interest!!!
PS. Short sales and REO's are not always a GOOD deal for all buyers, just FYI!!
#31 – 13 April, 2012 at 2:08 pm
JJ
Any buyer who goes to purchase a home and uses the exact same agent who is representing the seller is a fool. If you were to get sued, would you call up the attorney who is representing the people suing you and ask him to also represent you? Hell no. I know plenty of bad dishonest agents in all companies. Sorry for your unfortunate experience. Not all realtors act that way.
#30 – 24 March, 2012 at 9:59 pm
Tina C
Sorry about your bad experience. My family also had bad experiences with one of the APR agents. They call themselves "the preeminent purveyor of luxury homes" and my 15 year old son can do better home searching than them.
#29 – 15 March, 2012 at 12:41 am
JimV
I guess you realize now that Realtors are in it for one thing and one thing only: money. They love dual agency.
#28 – 11 March, 2012 at 3:06 am
F
My Dad is a realtor for Alain Pinel, and he's a really good guy, and gets along really well with his clients -- he's good friends with a whole bunch of them! Sorry for your experience, but i promise not all realtors are bad people!
#27 – 19 February, 2012 at 3:02 pm
Doris
As a new realtor I'm starting to learn there are lots of crooks in this business. I deal fairly at all times and it's troubling to see why many people have trouble understanding why I want to be in real estate but I really think if all good people are scared away from this profession then it would be more corrupt than ever. With that said I've associate myself with the good realtors. Hopefully I will last
#26 – 7 February, 2012 at 1:46 pm
realtors are liars
What do you expect from realtors? They are LYING CORRUPT individuals who are incapable of productive careers.
Why are realtors telling the public to buy housing when prices are falling?
#25 – 1 February, 2012 at 10:52 am
Zack
Manipulating negotiation is one thing. Lying about it is, though, a whole another level of business corruption. I would sue their asses right then. Don't bother reporting them to the realtor association. Realtor association is there to protect their people (e.g. realtors) not consumers like you.
#24 – 30 January, 2012 at 12:54 pm
JP
Wow.. Just wow. It's kind of funny how searching alain pinel on Google got me to your website. This just made it clear to me that this company plays very dirty and thanks to this, I will never do any business with Alain Pinel. Please don't let these guys get away with this easy. If you do, millions more will suffer. Good luck fighting!
#23 – 26 January, 2012 at 12:27 am
R.Manuel
So sorry to hear about the bad experience! Defamation of character is when you tell a lie about someone. If it is truthful and fact based then they can't say anything about it!
#22 – 16 January, 2012 at 12:27 am
Eric W
Wow. Your site comes up number 2 on google search for Alain Pinel. How much do you think it will cost to repair their brand name. Pacific Union can't buy this kinda marketing .
#21 – 14 January, 2012 at 11:18 pm
Preston
It's so sad to hear of such poor business practices. I wish it was an isolated case. However, Karma has a way of getting even.
#20 – 14 January, 2012 at 10:04 pm
Doug m
disgusting!!
#19 – 13 January, 2012 at 9:33 pm
Shelly W
So dishonest. I'm never going to work with them.
#18 – 12 January, 2012 at 3:51 pm
Michael P
Check with a real estate attorney to see if the facts of your case warrant a suit against them for constructive fraud. Their misrepresentations of material facts directly affected your decision to buy or not to buy. Their disclosure of your intentions, without permission may also be a breach of fiduciary duties they owed to you.
In cases like these, it is not uncommon for the injured party to be made whole by a damage award equal to the difference in what home was really worth and what you paid for it.
Time is of the essence so don't let this languish.
#17 – 11 January, 2012 at 4:21 pm
Judy M
wow.. what a horrible experience you and your husband had with these slimeballs. I will not work with this company ever again.
#16 – 11 January, 2012 at 2:15 am
Jason T.
Wow.... Wonder how widespread these kinds of occurrences are.
#15 – 20 November, 2011 at 3:56 pm
Cathy
This is absolutely ridiculous. The realtor (and her husband) make your average car salesmen look honest. I hope you continue to battle this legally and that Alan Pinel is wise enough to provide you with some sort of remuneration and to have its realtor undergo an apparently much-needed remediation program. I will never consider using Alan Pinel to look for Bay Area housing!
#14 – 18 November, 2011 at 5:06 pm
ACP
It seems like Alain Pinel Realtors broke several laws, including material misrepresentation. The least they owe you is the percentage of the cost of the home that is 624 ft^2 and lawyer fees. It would seem that disclosing your negotiation position breaks their contract with you. Who knows...maybe in the end you will get a FREE home after punitive damages, esp if you can show a trend to their malpractice.
#13 – 18 November, 2011 at 9:55 am
AP
Bad business practices. Would not work with company at any cost.
#12 – 18 November, 2011 at 2:23 am
KTP
Argh. what a nightmare... these home buyers were robbed of what should have been a joyous occasion of purchasing their dream home.
#11 – 18 November, 2011 at 1:03 am
KTP
Argh. what a nightmare... these home buyers were robbed of what should have been a joyous occasion of purchasing their dream home.
#10 – 18 November, 2011 at 1:02 am
G. S.
wow. so this was pretty recent incident. I totally can believe the husband tried to bully the clients. Thanks for sharing.
#9 – 16 November, 2011 at 5:32 pm
Daniel Hernandez
Seriously have you considered suing them for violating their breach of fiduciary duty? If this is all true, it could be a slam dunk case. I can help you.
#8 – 12 November, 2011 at 4:07 pm
VTY
Seems like violating your fiduciary duty to your clients would warrant a lawsuit as well... Just saying. Sucks that it leaves such a bad taste in your mouth when you should really just be enjoying your new home.
#7 – 11 November, 2011 at 1:00 pm
KT
These people make me sick. Seriously.. they should lose their real estate licenses.
#6 – 11 November, 2011 at 1:14 am
Pauly D
Lies, lawsuits and threats. sounds like a sound way to run a business. will avoid at all costs.
#5 – 10 November, 2011 at 4:47 pm
Cara K
That husband/lawyer needs to be reported to the California Bar Association for threatening frivolous lawsuits at the whim of his wife...
Gosh, why can't people just accept that they were wrong and just try to fix it?
#4 – 10 November, 2011 at 4:12 pm
h4cker
Hope the husband find a better work than writing threatening letters to take down negative reviews on yelp.
#3 – 6 November, 2011 at 12:54 am
DK
wow. that's pretty slimey!
#2 – 5 November, 2011 at 10:44 pm
Rob S.
Thank you for courageously sharing your experience with Que Foor. I will NEVER do business with someone who does a shoddy job than LIES to cover it up, AND gets her husband to use bully tactics.
#1 – 5 November, 2011 at 10:15 pm