Complaint Review: Phil Grosso - The Grosso Group - Premier Realty Of MI - Todd Stevens - Keller Williams

I purchased my home two years ago as a project. I was concerned about buying a fixer upper but my agent assured me I didn't have to worry about plumbing, heating, etc. because it would include a home warranty. After the sale closed, I contracted the agent and asked him how to contact the home warranty company. He said he would consult his broker, Phil Grosso. When he called me back he informed me I did not receive a home warranty because in the state of MI home warranties cannot be purchased on vacant properties. While I was highly alarmed, I did not take any action against either the agent, Todd Stevens, or the broker. However, two years later I learned that this was a complete lie.

I spoke with Grosso on the phone who tried multiple methods to place the blame on me. Specifically he said:
1) I should have had a home inspection. However, at the time I bought my home all utilities were off. I have since learned I could have had the utilities turned on so I could have the systems inspected but at the time I was not told that. I had asked my agent, Todd Stevens, what information the home inspector would be able to tell me without anything working and we had mutually agreed a home inspection would be a waste of my money. Again, Stevens never said anything about being able to turn on the gas, electricity or water which would have changed my decision not to have an inspection.

2) I should have had a lawyer. Grosso was adamant on this point, although he would never respond how a lawyer would have caught the fact that I was promised a home warranty and never received on. In fact, I had asked Todd Stevens about getting a lawyer and he told me in MI I did not need one as the people doing the closing would protect my interests.

3) The home warranty would not have replaced any of the systems that broke anyway. Grosso all but accused me of insurance fraud. I responded to him letting him know that it was Todd Stevens who told me the systems would be covered if they did not work and he did not respond to that in any real way. He simply heckled me telling me if I thought that insurance companies would pay for systems that were already broken, I must be stupid.

4) I did not get a home warranty because the seller's counter-offer excluded any warranties. He kept using this to get around to I should have retained a lawyer. I told him if this was true then it should have been communicated to me by my agent, Todd Stevens, but he kept saying it was the lawyers job to tell me the details of the contract. He did not respond to my questions about what the role of the real estate agent was or what Todd should have done.

5) There was no lie: at the time of my contract it was not possible to purchase a home warranty on a vacant home in MI. He then sent me a form from a home warranty company via email to "prove" this fact. Since this home warranty company was not the one in my contract, I called the company in my contract and learned that this was a lie.

I took Grosso to court because he is the broker. I signed a buyers agreement with Todd Stevens but the actual responsible party is the broker. When I went to court, Grosso started the court case by attempting to lie to the judge by claiming he only owns stock in Keller Williams and that I should be suing Keller Williams. I was able to correct him immediately by informing the judge that according to the parent company he was a franchisee (they would do nothing to help me because he is a franchisee and they cannot make him do anything.) He went on to verbally abuse me in court and confuse the proceedings with so much extraneous material that the judge quickly wanted to get rid of us. She said nothing could be done without testimony from Todd Stevens and she agreed to reconvene the trial when Stevens would be available. (Stevens conveniently travels most of the year for Extreme Makeover Home Edition. He told me he was leaving the country permanently but this turned out to also be a lie.) Grosso had the court date rescheduled but showed up without Stevens claiming Stevens was out of state. (I found an article online showing that Stevens was in the state the entire week before so they must have engineered it so Stevens would not have to show.) The judge then dismissed my claim without prejudice because Grosso claimed the broker is not responsible for the actions of the agent even though anyone who has ever been in real estate knows this is not true.

Grosso accepts no responsibility for his actions or Todd Steven's actions. They had a contract to report all the relevent information to me during contract negotiations and failed to do so. Then Grosso lied (I don't know if Stevens was a dupe or not) to cover it up. As a result of buying this house, I had to replace more than $15K worth of systems I was told would be picked up by the home warranty. I'm on the verge of declaring bankruptcy. And to add insult to injury, I had to listen to Grosso tell me I don't have a third grade education, and I am gratuitously suing him. If he and Todd Stevens had started by apologizing to me then we probably would not have ended up in court. And if they hadn't lied about home warranties being purchasable in MI on vacant properties then I could have bought my own even after closing and maybe saved some money. But then again, since it started with a lie about the home warranty covering systems that didn't work at closing, it probably wouldn't have helped.

If this report keeps even one person from being injured by these evil men it will be worth it. Grosso is a liar who thinks that by verbally attacking people he can get his way. He put tons more effort into trying to discredit me in court than he ever did on monitoring the sale of my home. Stevens is also a user. He helped me put $800 of siding on the home before it sold so the mortgage would go through which I would have been out if I had found out about the home warranty not being included. He also told me before I bought the home that he loved to do home improvement projects for fun and promised me he would help me fix the home for free (I kept saying, no, I'll give you some kind of money.) Then, after closing, he did a ton of work which I thought I could pay whatever I could afford for him to do. Then he presented me with a huge bill.

DO NOT GET INVOLVED WITH THESE MEN!!!! THEY ARE NOT HONEST REAL ESTATE PEOPLE THEY ARE SCAM ARTISTS!!!!

Jimmy
Rochester Hills, Michigan
U.S.A.