The McMillian Group

Thanks for the opportunity to allow us to address this complaint. We hope to clear up any misconceptions about what happened.Mr. [redacted]’s contact information was received through an inquiry he made on Realtor.com, a real estate web site.Mr. [redacted] listed his home with The McMillan Group. He signed...

the contract on May 6, 2016. The listing period was to commence on May 19, 2016 and expire November 19, 2106. Mr. [redacted] was rather adamant about how much he paid for our services. To accommodate him, Debbie offered him a graduated commission schedule. This is something she does on only rare occasions, certainly less than 5% of her listings. Please note the attached listing contract and addendum.The home was marketed with the same precision as all of Debbie’s listings Debbie takes. Her efforts generated seventy one showing requests. Some were declined. Most were confirmed. A showing/feedback report is attached.Unfortunately, even with seventy one showings, we were not able to procure an offer for Mr. [redacted]. At the time of listing, Mr. [redacted] had committed to making certain improvements including cleaning up the yard and finishing several projects that were underway but not completed. There were other issues as well including a dog who regularly urinated and defecated in the home. Please understand that these issues are not our opinions or conjecture. The attached showing/feedback report is what the agents who showed the home reported.At some point, Mr. [redacted] became frustrated. He claims to have requested a call from Debbie from the showing company we employ, a third party vendor. These requests were never passed along. He claims to have made attempts to reach Debbie by phone. Unfortunately he chose not to leave messages when he made these calls which resulted in them not being returned, if they were in fact made.Mr. [redacted] finally requested that the showing service reach Debbie while he was on the phone with him. This attempt resulted in Debbie and Mr. [redacted] having a discussion. Mr. [redacted] expressed displeasure at the lack of communication. As a result, Debbie had agreed to release Mr. [redacted] from his contract.[redacted]2 | P a g eDuring this discussions, Mr. [redacted] mentioned that he had been approached by another Realtor who lived in his neighborhood one day while he was out mowing the lawn. He noted that she had inquired “how’s it was going” regarding the sale of his home, offered to help him in the future and added that it was "more than (Debbie) had done." Marketing that generated seventy one shows seemed to be considered less than adequate.Subsequent to that discussion, Mr. [redacted]'s property was withdrawn from active marketing per his request.Debbie mentioned the situation to me. As the managing broker of the office, contract releases have to include my signature. The contact between this random agent who stopped by while Mr. [redacted] was out mowing was a problem for me. It is expressly forbidden for other agents to solicit business from currently listed properties per the Realtor Code of Ethics. This home was clearly in that category, sign in the yard and all.I told Debbie I would be happy to sign the release with the provision that Mr. [redacted] provide the name of the Realtor that had made the potentially unethical contact. She passed this information along to Mr. [redacted].Eventually he reached out to me by phone. I explained my position to him. He was at first agreeable to the request. We briefly discussed the encounter with the agent. He specifically noted that she had left her business card and offered her help in the future. He asked me if it was a problem that she had "solicited" his business. I explained that yes, in fact, it was expressly forbidden and a violation of the Realtor Code of Ethics.It was at this point he became agitated. He said he didn't want to get any one in trouble. I repeated my offer to sign his release for the information I requested. His agitation heightened. He was adamant about not giving me the name. I repeated the condition again. Our conversation ended.It was a few days later that he again contacted Debbie directly. She again referred him to me. He threatened complaints to the "State Department", the Revdex.com and the Attorney General. He was again agitated that we were holding his home "hostage". I feel like it's important to point out that[redacted]3 | P a g eMr. [redacted] was still under contract with our firm and we were under no legal obligation to release him.He forwarded an email Debbie had written to him to the Hendricks County Prosecutor claiming we were guilty of extortion.The following evening he emailed me again noting that the Sherriff's Office had dispatched a deputy to his home to take his extortion complaint; that once that complaint was taken it would be "out of (his) control"; that he would provide me with the report number so I could address the charges once they had left. He noted that I could avoid all of this if I would immediately sign his release.In all candor, I ignored this threat as I realized it to be frivolous and with no basis. In the next hour or so, I received another email noting the complaint number for both the Revdex.com and Attorney General. The next morning, I woke to an email timed at 2.40am basically stating that Mr. [redacted] was going to speak with the agent in question and, given her permission, would provide me with the information requested.That day, I received an email that the agent in question was fine with him disclosing her name as she felt she had done nothing wrong. I immediately made arrangements to meet with Mr. [redacted] and sign the release the following day.We met. I signed his release. He gave me the information. His home's status in the Realtor data base was amended to allow him to sign a contract with another agent.Throughout our discussions, Mr. [redacted] seemingly continued to ignore the fact that we were under no obligation to release him from the contract that he himself had signed. It appears that when faced with the reality of the situation, that he had no leverage, that his threats were ignored, he chose to find a way make our proposal work for him.I find it interesting that as uncomfortable as Mr. [redacted] was with creating a problem for an agent he didn't know, he was certainly willing to create the same for the one who had successfully marketed his home to generate seventy one showings. Unfortunately, his own lack of cooperation in providing a salable product (ie a house that consistently showed poorly as[redacted]4 | P a g enoted in the feedback report) was what lead to our unfortunate disagreement and unfriendly parting of the ways. We provide the same service to many others and have done so for almost a collective sixty years between Debbie and I. Gratefully, this type of situation occurs in virtually none of our dealings with the public. We have had thousands of more than satisfied clients. It saddens both of us that this uncooperative "squeaky wheel" could potentially undo any of that.Please note the email thread, listing contract, feedback report and release are attached.I’m happy to answer any questions you might have.George V[redacted]Office ManagerKeller Williams Indy Metro WestBrownsburg Business Center