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The Christies Real Estate Team


Country Canada
City Coquitlam, British Columbia
Address 101-1020 Austin Ave
Phone 604-936-0422
Website http://www.christiesrealestateteam.com

The Christies Real Estate Team Reviews

  • Apr 18, 2016

I am British, disabled and in a wheelchair. I am a Canadian permanent resident but was living in England with my father. When he died I decided to move back to Canada (Vancouver) and find a realtor as I had some inheritance money coming to me. I found the Christies Real Estate Team via google and liked the look of them as they were all members of the same family and sounded experienced.

I e-mailed them and asked them to send me listings of condos and Deborah Christie responded. She sounded OK when I was in England but she was different when I came out to Canada and met her. She was very abrupt, often to the point of rudeness and I felt very uncomfortable with her - it was like treading on eggshells. She also frequently threw back at me things she had done for me as part of her job, including the fact that she hired a wheelchair taxi twice to drive me around to see properties and bought me food from McDonald's once while we were out. She damaged the rental car on one occasion due to her careless driving and tried to demand repayment from me of the cost she incurred. She often swore and used foul language in front of me and my care aides who accompanied me, making abusive comments about other drivers and generally behaving inapropriately.

I was going to pay for a deposit on a condo via international wire transfer because I didn't have a Canadian bank account, but apparently her company was unable to accept this method of payment and as a result she shouted at me, threw her keys at my belongings and accused me of not wanting the property. On another occasion I arranged to meet her at this condo so that a designer could evaluate the kitchen and a renovation technician could bring samples to show me. She turned up half an hour late knowing full well that the first appointment was costing me $250, and then screamed and shouted at me when the second appointment went on later then planned even though it was her fault. She also cost me an additional $50 which she refused to refund me.

While I was in England a condo came up in my listings that I loved. Unfortunately just before I flew out to Canada it was taken off the market but Deborah said that it was going to go back on in March at a slightly higher price. When I came out in January she tried to get me an early viewing but was unable to because the sellers' tenant threatened to walk out if they showed it + in the end they decided they weren't interested in selling the property no matter what the price and however hard she tried to persuade them, so she told me to move on and find something else. I was really upset but she was adamant that it wasn't going to be relisted.

I found another condo I liked. After they had an open house Deborah told me they were expecting an offer and that I should put in an offer too if I liked it. I did and it was accepted. On the day I was due to pay the deposit (3rd March) the first condo suddenly reappeared out of the blue in my listings. I was absolutely stunned and immediately called Deborah to tell her. She was really surprised too. I said I didn't want to pay the deposit for the second condo until I'd seen the first one but Deborah said I had to or the owners could sue me. I said I didn't care and she told me snappily that they could sue her, that I'd landed her in the middle of it all and that her reputation would be ruined. She threw what she'd done for me, ie the wheelchair taxi hire and food back at me again. She promised me that if I liked the Guildford Way condo then she would find a way to transfer the Westwood Street deposit over, glossing over the situation to induce me to go ahead and put down the $10,000 deposit which I relented and did.

I have since found out that she lied to me and the owners of the Westwood Street condo couldn't have sued her. She also completely changed her tune once I'd put down the deposit telling me that it was tied to the Westwood Street condo. There was a delay re viewings on the original condo because of the tenant situation again but they finally had an open house by appointment and she said she would only meet me there if I proved to her that I had the funds to buy both condos, that my sister was transferring the funds across from my father's estate, and that I got a lawyer and completed on the Westwood Street condo first. This time I didn't comply with her demands.

Because I am disabled and in a wheelchair I needed to make changes to the condo to make it accessible - flatten the threshold and change all the carpet to laminate so that I could wheel over both, also change both bathrooms - put a new bath, shower and toilets in and move the locations of these. I wasn't familiar with subjects as the law is different in England but I have been told since that Deborah Christie had a moral/ethical duty to protect my interests and advise me that my offer should have included a subject removal that I got permission from the strata company to make the necessary changes in order to protect me. If they'd refused to tell me until I'd bought my unit, which is what they said when I approached them, then that was my opt out. However, she encouraged me to put in a subject free offer as I didn't need a mortgage to encourage the sellers to accept my offer over the competing offer, clearly to get a quick sale.

To reiterate, Deborah Christie behaved unprofessionally and inappropriately and failed to protect my interests. She cost me my $10,000 deposit which was my inheritance money from my dead father to help me get out of a wheelchair and put a roof over my head. I have submitted a formal complaint about her to the Real Estate Council of British Columbia and advise potential property purchasers to STAY AWARE & BEWARE!

I also called the sellers' realtor: Jennifer Hood of Georgia Pacific Realty to try to plead humanitarian reasons and request that the sellers return my $10,000 deposit, and she heartlessly hung up on me and told me never to contact her again.

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