REAL ESTATE CRIME

DESTROYING MONEY IS ILLEGAL

by Neil Jenman

Reading time: 2.5 mins apx

Under the Crimes (Currency) act 1961, it’s a criminal offence to deliberately destroy money.

Even if it’s just a pendant, the law forbids you from drilling a tiny hole in a coin. 

It’s illegal to damage or destroy money.

But not to waste it. Or lose it though naïveté or inexperience.

In the real estate world, most home sellers destroy thousands of dollars.

And this is even before they sell their homes.

All estate agents have a fiduciary duty to act in the best interests of clients. Most agents put their own interests first.

As a homeowner – who may sell one day – you need to know how agents deliberately destroy your money. And you need to know how to protect yourself.

For example, agents regularly persuade sellers to pay thousands of dollars to advertise their homes when those agents already have buyers for those homes. Even if agents don’t have a buyer for a home, they could still find buyers without wasting (destroying) thousands of dollars of the sellers’ money.

But that’s not what agents want to do – at least not in Australia.

No, agents mislead sellers into destroying thousands of dollars with so-called “marketing”. For two main reasons. First, because agents promote themselves with the sellers’ money and second, because agents use the sellers’ money to generate leads for themselves (yes, more sellers whose money they will destroy).

As the man who calls himself Australia’s biggest real estate trainer (who’s paid by a huge media company that rakes in hundreds of millions of dollars from real estate ads) yells at agents: “What I want you to do is go back to your existing vendors and get more marketing dollars from them. Why? Because you’re going to use those dollars to find more listings. You’re going to use those dollars to find more listings.”

It’s a perpetual circle of dishonestly destroying vendors’ money.

But not your money. No way. Not you.

Each month, almost seventy thousand homeowners list their homes for sale. And the majority of these homeowners have thousands of dollars destroyed needlessly.

It’s not only a national disgrace, it’s also a national crime.

THE CRIME.

You see, there’s another law about money that goes like this: It is an offence under [Section 178BA] the Crimes Act to dishonestly obtain a financial advantage of any kind through deception. Offenders are liable to imprisonment for five years.

If this law was enforced, most agents would be in jail. This is no exaggeration.

But like so much in real estate, dishonesty is rampant. Outside of trust accounting, laws are seldom enforced. Especially when it comes to protecting consumers.

HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF.

To protect yourself from this real estate crime, here’s what to do: SAY NO.

Stand up for yourself. Tell the agent that you will not pay any money – or commit to pay any money – until your home is sold. You will not allow them to destroy your money.

As more sellers become aware of this crime, more agents are being forced to abandon it. Sellers are insisting that agents place the sellers’ interests ahead of the agent’s interests.

As it should be.

The renowned diplomat, Dean Acheson, once said of the Russians that “They respect only one thing – toughness.”

The same applies with real estate agents. Be tough.

Most sellers are soft. But not you, please; for your own sake.

Don’t allow your money to be destroyed. Take care of yourself.

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