Selling a home can be a lot of work, especially when the potential buyer wants to make everything difficult.

What would you do if the buyer of your home was taking things almost to the point where it would be considered harassment?

That is what the man and his realtor in this story experienced, but they won in the end.

I can stoop to your level…

So, I’m helping a guy sell his condo.

The place was absolutely gorgeous.

The guy was a general contractor, bought it as a dump, gutted it, and turned it into a palace.

What makes this even more entertaining is that the guy was 84 years old.

His wife died, he sold his house, bought the condo, and figured he’d die there.

Lucky guy.

Nope, he ended up meeting some spry little 77 year old hottie and they were going to get married and live at her house.

Let’s call the seller Mike.

A guy, who we will call Bill, comes to see the condo which is somewhat overpriced, but it was severely over improved and I thought we could get that price.

I didn’t notice Bill’s appointment time when I went to visit Mike for a signature on a price reduction.

So, I just happened to be there when Bill shows up.

Bill shows up and doesn’t have an agent with him.

This is a no-no, but since I’m there, I walk him through.

He mentions that he called his realtor because he saw my sign.

So, this wasn’t a property that his agent actually found for him.

Oh well, whatever.

He seems unimpressed and leaves.

Makes me wonder what it is worth today.

Mike drops the price to $235,000 and wants $225,000 minimum because he doesn’t want to owe anything after closing.

Bill’s agent calls me and says Bill wants to make an offer, but she’s busy.

She wants ME to meet with her client to write up an offer.

I point out the legal issues with this and she’s like, “I won’t say anything if you don’t.”

I call my broker and explain the situation.

He asks his wife (also a realtor) to handle writing up the offer.

Illinois allows dual agency (where I can help a buyer and seller at the same time for the same property), but I can’t do it for a realtor with another brokerage.

After my broker’s wife gets done, Bill tells her he’s having second thoughts and to hold off.

During the next two weeks, Bill shows up at Mike’s condo SEVEN TIMES unannounced, no appointment, and has no realtor with him.

Mike is a nice guy and thinks he’s got a hot buyer, so he lets the guy in to look around, measure, write notes, take pictures, etc.

I had no idea this was going on or I would have put a stop to it.

Anyway, Bill talks to Mike who’s ready to move.

Bill says he knows Mike only bought it for $100,000 three years earlier.

Mike tells the guy, that the lowest he’s going is $225,000 because he took out a construction loan and put about $100,000 into the full-gut remodel with high end materials and appliances.

I’m not kidding.

It sounds like he did a great job.

The place was spectacular.

3 bedroom, 3 bath, living room, huge chef’s kitchen, wet bar, jacuzzi tubs, formal dining room, vaulted ceilings, family room, loft, and every room was wired for phone, cable, surround sound, and Internet (which was a relatively new thing at the time).

Mike also showed Bill the net sheet I gave him which showed that at $225,000, Mike would walk away with $1,900.

Bill calls his realtor who calls me to have me make the offer that my broker’s wife wrote up.

However, Bill calls my broker’s wife and tells her to lower the offer from $230,000 to $223,000 because “that old man can afford to bring a hundred bucks to closing.”

(The way the numbers work based on the net sheet and market time, Mike still would have walked away with a few bucks.)

I get the offer from my broker’s wife and she tells me to “enjoy the little gift and I’m not taking anything away” (I’ll explain this later).

I present the offer to Mike and Mike tells me to just hold onto it because he has another appointment scheduled and wants to see if they’ll make an offer.

They don’t, but Mike waits anyway.

At this point, Bill has inconvenienced him multiple times and gave a low “I’m gonna screw this old man so he walks away with nothing” offer after having a very frank discussion.

Bill is calling every day to ask about his offer.

I can tell that he loves it.

His agent? Nowhere to be found.

Never got a call from her.

What a hassle.

Finally, 3 weeks later, Bill’s calls have gone from innocent inquiry to angry screaming.

(No, there’s no time limit on Illinois real estate contracts unless you put one in and he didn’t.)

Mike finally signs off because he feels bad for me.

He would have left Bill hanging another 3 weeks if he didn’t feel bad about me having to deal with the calls.

Bill does his inspection and tries to renegotiate.

Mike tells him to drop dead since Mike is a general contractor and knows the work is done to code despite what Bill’s inspector said.

By the way, Bill’s inspector was a friend of his.

Bill still moves forward.

Bill drags his feet with his bank and the closing keeps getting pushed back.

Mike is upset with Bill.

FINALLY, we close.

Instead of being in a room together, Mike and Bill are in separate rooms because they hate each other at this point and no one wants an explosion.

Bill tries to renegotiate at the closing.

Mike literally yells, “He wants $100 because I don’t have low flow toilets? I’ll give him $100, but I’m going to jam it up his rear to my elbow.”

I don’t know if Bill heard it, but I would have loved to have seen the look on his face.

Now the revenge had on my behalf.

The closer comes in near the end and says, “Jane Doe from XYZ realty called to tell me to send her commission check to her office. I don’t see that she’s getting a check.”

I give her a copy of the contract and addendum and show her what my broker’s wife added to it.

It is what she deserved.

Not only did she have him sign an Exclusive Buyer Broker Agreement naming her as his designated agent, she also got him to write (and sign), in his own handwriting, “I inquired about this property because I saw Myzyri’s sign. My agent didn’t accompany me when Myzyri showed me the unit. Broker’s Wife drafted my offer.”

This basically showed that the other realtor didn’t do her job, so I wasn’t paying her.

(Buyer’s realtors are paid part of the seller’s agent’s commission.)

So, I explained all this and on the advice of the seller’s attorney, I amended my commission statement to give the other realtor a $50 referral fee.

She cashed the check and called for WEEKS demanding her money.

The Chicago Association of Realtors reviewed her case and told her to get lost.

As a side note, many years later, I saw that she had her license revoked for multiple ethics violations.

And now, Mike’s revenge…

About ten years later, Mike’s new wife died and he called me to sell that house because he was going to move into an assisted living facility.

Now this is pro-level revenge.

While talking with Mike, he told me about the things he did before leaving the condo years ago.

The fans had no chains or switches.

They were operated with remote controls.

He taped the remotes to the tops of the fan blades and turned them on high before leaving the last time.

He removed the super high quality garbage disposal that was super quiet and installed the cheapest and loudest one he could find.

He shut off all the water valves for the sinks and toilets.

He poured straight bleach in the toilet tanks. He claims that will destroy the mechanisms in the toilet tank or at least drastically reduce the life expectancy.

He put water restrictors in the showers.

He removed the wheels from the bottoms of the sliding glass doors and left them in a kitchen drawer assuming Bill would just throw them out assuming they were junk.

He turned the little pins on the igniter for the attached grill so they wouldn’t create a spark.

He disconnected the igniter on the oven. He didn’t break it, he just loosened the connection.

I think there were a few other things, but I can’t remember what they were.

He said he got a nasty letter from Bill’s attorney about the doors, oven, and grill demanding to be paid for the service calls for the repairs.

He ignored it and never heard anything else about it.

Wow, that sounds like a nightmare, but I love the revenge he got in the end.

Let’s take a look at what the people in the comments have to say.

It was a great story.

Yeah, that could be dangerous.

He seems like quite a guy.

It would have sold immediately in today’s market.

I would have been tempted to walk away from the deal.

Just out of spite.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a customer who insists that their credit card works, and finds out that isn’t the case.