Thanks for the great column on lazy Realtors (New ideas and change – The Publisher’s Page, November REM) –I call them “Wieners and Whiners”. I can’t stand FINTRAC (why should I put my life on the line for the feds? I will, if they arm me) as I am not an inspector, policeman nor an accountant or lawyer. It is worthless paper sitting in a file somewhere. I took this up with my broker, my board and the provincial board to no success. They all said that’s the law and that’s that.
I refused to collect it from anyone and then my broker held back my cheques until I produced them. I told her that I would fight it when the time came but she didn’t want to get mixed up in the red tape. No guts – no glory. I would love to fight this in court because by doing it I am breaking the Freedom Of Information Act, which has a stiffer jail sentence.
The other one I am fighting right now is the new (last year) decision in B.C. to have Property Disclosure Statements for all buildings and sheds on a property. If they are a structure with water and sewer, it’s three pages deep and without, two pages deep. Well, I was trying to list a ranch that had three houses (9); five barns (12 – two with water and septic); six equipment sheds (12); two guest cabins (6 – you guessed it, they had washrooms); and five horse and cow shelters (10). Have you added that up yet? It comes to 49 pages of disclosure. Now there’s three pages for the listing, two pages for Working With a Realtor, which means a grand total of 54 pages just for the listing.
Using the 49 pages plus eight pages of Contract of Purchase and Sale, two pages of Working With a Realtor, one page of Limited Duel Agency, one page of Remuneration Discloser, one page of FINTRAC and two pages of title, the grand total for this ranch would be – are you ready for it – 64 pages. Can you believe this nonsense? Those of us who are called country boys are wondering just what in the hell you city slickers are doing. The only place that I can recall 64 pages kicking around is in the outhouse.
That’s where I am right now, because I never got the listing or the sale.
Dean Stinson
Re/Max Country
Princeton, B.C.
