Board Package - Broker Changed FInancials

Start with rebny then call your attorney. I'd imagine that if the selling broker amended your financials without your consent it would be some sort of criminal activity, but I'm not an attorney. sounds pretty awful.

ugh, if true, that seller broker can get into a lot of trouble. Not sure how they prove it with a few hands touching the package prior to the board decision (the broker, the managing agent, the board)..and I dont see the managing agent or board altering anything leaving only the broker as the last man standing.

Its usually 30 days, not business days, for a board to get a decision back to you. When did the board receive the package? When does your rate lock expire? Also, how did they delete the liability? Did they black it out or did they alter the actual documents? Agree with e76, sounds pretty awful and sorry you have to deal with this..good luck!

Why did you not read through the package line by line before submitting it?? It is incumbent upon the buyer to be sure there are no omissions or errors after the pkg has been prepared. The buck stops with you. If you failed to carefully check the documents before submitting then you made a major mistake. That's your own fault.

How did the board find out about the liability? Did you proactively provide them with a statement that showed the liability, or did the board ask questions about it? If the former, I would see if the broker can speak with the board, own up to the oversight, and try to smooth things out. If the latter, I think you may be screwed.

As to the broker's culpability.... Do you have proof of what you provided to the broker? E.g., was everything submitted in PDF over e-mail? Was the form the broker submitted signed by you? If so, was it changed after you signed it, and is there proof (like white out)? Or is it the case that you signed a rearranged form without reading it carefully?

Suggestion for the future in case your deal does not go through: send all items via PDF over e-mail (password protected, of course). Even if a form has to returned with a wet signature, send a PDF version via e-mail as well. And obviously read what you sign.

Good luck.

what does your atty have to say?

This is a serious legal situation that should be getting discussed with your attorney. If you are claimed to have engaged in fraud in your application, and you are denied admission by the Board, you stand to have the buyer claim a right to the escrow funds based on your bad faith. You will be left to argue that the fraud was not your own but that of another party. Meanwhile, the large escrow is not available to you. Posting this sort of thing publicly is not advisable. Once again, your allegations involve serious legal issues which can profoundly affect you financially. Treat the matter with the degree of gravity that is warranted. With tens of thousands of dollars at risk (if not more) I would be spending my Saturday morning with my attorney sitting down with the management of the selling broker's agency to work this out.

I hope you have an exact copy of the package you provided to the seller's agent which you now claim that agent changed without your permission.

fully concur KW. this is pretty serious, alot of money at risk. maybe posting here after resolved if even to advise a lessons learned. otherwise this is full on COD.

What KW said, plus I'd make a complaint to the Dept. of State. There's a line between prettifying a package and fraud, and it sounds like the listing broker crossed it.

Ali R.
DG Neary Realty

Discuss. With. Attorney. ASAP!!!

This whole thing doesn't make sense. Why would a selling agent ask you for you financials so he can amend them and then deliberately leave out pertinent information which, had it been disclosed, wouldn't have caused the problems you're having now?

If the info was not disclosed, how did the board discover it to ask why it was omitted?

Wouldn't a loan show up when they run your credit anyway?

I still don't understand. Are you saying you signed the document without first checking it over carefully for errors/omissions? If so, the question is why? Or are you saying the broker changed/deleted an item AFTER you'd already signed off on the package?

Sounds like you disclosed it after all in a W-2. That should work in your favor, no?

by not paying off a loan from his 401K prior to purchasing this unit, it appears that the OP in effect used a loan from his 401K as part or all of his downpayment. that seems like a major problem putting aside whatever the broker did or didn't do.

If he took out the 401k loan for the express purpose of purchasing a home, as long as the 401k plan allows that it is perfectly legal and done all the time.

Kaiser: you have disclosed sufficient detail here that anyone familiar with your situation can identify you. Insulting the board doesn't work in your favor. You have an email in to your lawyer? Are you kidding? You stand to lose your escrow if everyone behaves like jerks, or at least have to fight over it, and yet rather than actually pick up the phone you just post details of your transaction on line. None of this suggests a sober approach to handling a transaction of this importance. In addition, your posts are terribly confusing. What is the precise material change you feel the broker made? Your debt is, as you state, contained in documents submitted with your package. So what was it left off from? The summary sheets of the application? Did you complete that form, sign it, give it to the broker to submit, and mysteriously what you wrote disappeared? Or did the broker type out the summary form for you and just fail to include it, and then you signed it without finding the error? If the former, I assume there are now two versions in existence: your original version that you handed to the broker, and the altered version. Seems simple enough to provide the board with the original to show the error or misfeasance is on the broker's part. Since you continue to feel posting here is not against your interests, what exactly happened? We're very curious since we've never heard of something like this before on this board.

Before going too crazy, I would see if you do, in fact, get rejected. Given the questions around your financials, it's perfectly reasonable for the board to need some extra time.

True, this is a potential legal nightmare. But, from the details supplied, it seems more like a careless mistake than a deliberate deceit. The information was right there on the statement and W-2s.

I'm on the board of a small building (which may actually place more emphasis on honesty/transparency since we all live in close quarters), and I'd forgive this omission as long as we got an apology and the rest of the financials/interview were ok.

kaiser - this is an interesting situation and I am sure that I am not alone in saying that I appreciate (from a voyeuristic perspective) your willingness to respond to posts and keep the discussion going. That said, I think you need to do yourself a favor and stop feeding the SE voyeurs. kylewest speaks the truth - "Posting this sort of thing publicly is not advisable."

FYI, your story has gone (a little) viral and is the lead item on Brick Underground's homepage this morning.
http://www.brickunderground.com/blog/2011/07/a_broker_submits_the_wrong_financials_and_puts_deposit_at_risk

Maybe I'm missing something here, but I just don't see how this publicity can be to your benefit. My advice: back away from the keyboard

kaiser, sounds to me that you agreed to something with your broker without fully understanding the consequences.

If you want this to die, you might want to send a feedback to SE support and see if they will delete the thread. I don't know all of their policies about editing message board content, but it's worth a try.

Maybe I'm living in la-la land or have been too preoccupied with my huge renovation, but what is Brick Underground and why are they sourcing stories/comments from this message board? Seems kind of shady to me.

@lad: there's nothing shady. Brick Underground clearly attributed the source of the subject thread as being Streeteasy and went on to paraphrase some posts (mine mostly). The site then had an attorney comment on the situation and offer advice on how to avoid this problem. It is no different than someone writing, "The New York Times reported that...." or "Appearing on Nightline, the DSK victim said..." So long as you site the source, there's nothing shady.

Well the story is slightly inaccurate as they state it was the buyer's broker and I believe at least the thread started with stating it was the seller's broker. Obviously everyone does not have all the facts including brick underground, however the message is on point and that is make sure you review the final board package prior to submittion and the buyer's or seller's broker should never adjust numbers after you have signed off. Even if you filled out something incorrectly it is on the buyer to correct and ensure it is in the end right.

Mikev, I too remember the OP to state it was the seller's broker. That might make a difference, still from the first post, I felt that we did not get all of the facts. Just my opinion, but something may progress that none of us saw coming. I am glad for all concerned that SE did the right thing. Let us hope that none of us will ever have to contact SE feedback for anything. Oh God, please.

@kylewest, I think it depends on what Brick Underground is trying to do/be. If it's supposed to be a "serious" site, I think posting a bylined article based on an anonymous internet post without any kind of verification or investigation of the claim is pretty shady -- attribution or not.

If it's supposed to be a real estate gossip/rumor mill blog, then I guess it is what it is, and it's good for the rest of us to realize that someone is actively scouring our posts to make "news" out of them. I realize that everything you write online is public information, but there's a difference (IMO) between realizing that someone could find it and knowing that someone is actively looking to make a story out of it.

@lad, BrickUnderground isn't really a "serious" site, it's mainly just a blog helping people who live in the city already or are moving there. They linked this thread mainly as a reminder about the bad things that can happen when you don't review what you're signing and I'm sure it will help, you know people who read about this story because of their article are going to make sure all is well on their next board package.

This isn't the first time they've linked to a SE story, if I recall correctly they've linked back to a number of different places much like Curbed does as well as the Gawker sites. Just a product of the internet, really nothing shady about it.