Remax Waynesboro PARE, MAX Associates Realty ripoff Waynesboro Pennsylvania
While in the Us Army my young wife, 4 Month old Baby and I were taken advantage of by Dawn N. Benedict Owner and Darwyn W. (Dar) Benedict Owner of Remax and Associates in Waynesboro PA. We rented a home that frome the outside and for the most part from the inside looked fine, except that 2weeks prior to renting the home it was condemed by the city because the home was in danger of collapse.
When confronted about this she said oh don't wory we fixed all the problems it had (A LIE). The problems com to find out were not fixed and would lead to a horror story you would not belive. the list goe as follows.
Rain leaking though the foundation and into the basement behind the main fuse box. This leak at times was a full on torrent of water as the neighbors gutters ran right into it. Real nice as the Washer and dryer were also located in the basement
The sump pump was completely inoperable leaving at least 2 feet of standing water at all times in the basement and at one point it reached over 8 feet before she finally called a contactor to pump it out (note she nor her husband ever fixed the pump) .
The water situation caused our favorite situation the live in basement ice skating rink, in the winter. The water would pour in when it rained and then freeze solid. Making for an over $500 electric bill (no insulation between the basement and the house above) as we had base board heat, and well it ran, ALWAYS. No fire place either so it was REALY cold!
When Mr. And Mrs. Benedict were informed of these problems by phone face to face and finally by registered mail she simply said she would get to it as soon as possible. So we tried to take them to court because the refused under any circumstances to release us from our lease in fact she sent a letter to my commander saying that we were attempting to break our lease. So we filed a report with the Magistrates office in order to have us released form the lease (Oh did I mention the ONLY magistrate at this time in Waynesboro was Mr. Benedicts' brother ) Consequently we were stuck in a freezing house on a Private First Classes Salary, for a year. When it was finally time to leave the house of pain we cleaned and scrubbed and spackled and painted . our little hearts out..they still kept our $700 deposit remember there is a difference in White and Off White trust me it cost me $700.
AL
Albert
Spotsylvania, Virginia
U.S.A.
1 Updates & Rebuttals
Vicki
Hagerstown,Maryland,
U.S.A.
Re max riped us off too.
#2Consumer Comment
Fri, August 22, 2008
I would recommend to anyone to NEVER use or trust any representative of Re Max reality INC. In 1996 we bought a new house to be constructed on our lot from Re Max in Frederick Maryland. Our agent Mr. Ken Daluhy sold us a modular house
(from North American Modular Homes)vs stick built because the house would be ready "faster". We signed many legal contracts and blue prints of the exact house to be set on our lot overlooking Harper ferry over the Potomac river. When the house was delivered it was the wrong house!! It was completely backwards from the house we had ordered to overlook our river view. The house did not even fit on the foundation because the foundation was built correctly. When we tried to refuse the house, the modular co told us that their contract was with Re Max not us so they"had no contractual obligation my family" Re-Max told us that because the house "was worth the same amount as the correct house we had to accept it". We could not believe what we were hearing. We demanded that they take away the wrong house and bring us the right one, they refused. The agent, his broker, and even Re Max Corporate refused to fix the house and they then filed a $190,000.00 mechanic's lean against us for refusing to buy the backwards house. We went to lawyers and they all wanted $20,000.00 retainers to file against our agent / builder. We filed a complaint with The Maryland Reality Commission, but they decided that yes we had been ripped off but our agent was wearing his "builders hat" not his "real estate agent hat" when we signed our contract (at his re max office)so they could not help us or punish him. Mr. Daluhy even filed bankruptcy the same day as he filed the mechanics lean. We lost over $30,000.00 and were forced into bankruptcy ourselves due to the $190,000.00 lean. It took us 7 years of renting after that to finally afford to buy another home. I found out later we were just one of Mr. Daluhys victims. We were at least able to get a reporter from Fox news in Washington D.C. to do a news report about our experience. The reporter called me the day after our story was on and she told me that Re max and Mr Dulahy had called the station and threatened to sue them for the bad publicity and she said they were told "We are Fox News we have plenty of lawyers so feel free" We lost a lot of money and the entire experience consumed over 5 years of our lives. (When we finally got our deposit back) I always advise anyone who buys a home to find a GOOD lawyer (another long story) to read and advise you on everything you sign, because every real estate transaction seems to be set up to protect every one involved except the actual consumer. I did manage to get some changes to the laws controlling builders enacted in Maryland but all in all this was consumer protection from hell.