This review is to share our extraordinarily bad experience with the agent/realtor, Mr. Bruce Carpenter, when we hired him to sell/manage our property. Mr. Carpenter turned out to be not just an ineffective real estate agent, but also an unethical, negligent, and irresponsible property manager.
Ineffectual:

In January of 2019 we re-hired Bruce Carpenter, who was our real estate agent/buyer for a condo we purchased in 2015, to sell this condo when we relocated to a different state. We also signed a property management contract with him (on his advice, to keep everything in good order) which permitted him to lease our fully furnished condo in the meantime.
In September of 2020, after almost two years of his inability to make a sale, we finally told him that we have decided and move forward with a new agent.

Unethical:

We fired Mr. Carpenter when we realized that he was an unethical property manager when Bruce asked us to compensate me $500 for procuring a prospective tenant. We replied to his request quoting a portion of the management contract we signed with him, which stated that it was his responsibility to find and screen new tenants for our condo. Thus, requesting an additional $500 fee for a producing a tenant, in our view, was not just unprofessional, but unethical behavior.

Negligent:

When our new realtor took over our property management/sale duties and came to evaluate the condo, she discovered that it was filthy, damaged and a cat was living in the condo, which was in violation of the lease.
When our new realtor asked to see the renters property checklist to verify the condition of the property when new tenants move in/out, neither the tenants nor Mr. Carpenter were able to produce it.
Mr. Carpenter neglected to provide this essential document to the tenants. This neglect resulted in the tenants dispute over the security deposit deduction, followed by them taking us to court.
As our property manager, Mr. Carpenter had an obligation to provide all new tenants with the checklist and to ensure that the tenants were respecting the lease and keeping the property in a good clean order.
Shortly after Mr. Carpenter was fired, our new realtor found a buyer for our property.
During the closing sale a stunning discovery was made: the deed for the garage, which was a part of the property purchased along with the condo in 2015, was never transferred to us by Mr. Carpenter, and so the garage legally still belonged to the previous owner! Mr. Carpenter neglected to ensure transfer of the deed for the garage! So, the sale had to be stopped to search for the previous owner to transfer the deed for the garage to us so we could complete the sale.

Untrustworthy:

Mr. Carpenter never mentioned any damages regarding our condo, which was in exceptional selling condition when he took over management. His responsibility was to ensure our property was kept in a good and clean condition. Instead, he concealed the mistreatment of our property and let the last tenants, his friends, violate the lease.

Irresponsible:

Instead of accepting responsibility for the damages, after receiving the balance of the security deposit, the tenants started to blast us with angry emails demanding the return of the deducted money, and later, took us to court.
Our deductions were based on the terms of the lease, the photos of the condo and admission of the damages by the tenants.
Mr. Carpenter did not attempt to step in and assist in resolving the terrible situation he put us in. He took no responsibility for the mistreatment of our property during his time as our property manager, nor for the hardship and legal mess his negligence caused.
We had to spend a lot of time and energy dealing with the damages and legal matters caused by Mr. Carpenters mismanagement and ended up having to hire a real estate lawyer to help us end the nightmare we found ourselves because of the negligent and irresponsible realtor Bruce Carpenter.


2019

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