In February of 2017 my mother had passed away suddenly during California's tax crisis that resulted after the 2016 general election, and needed to sell her properties and acquire one out of state before any government annex. We had a very short 3 month window of time to sell the house and acquire a property out of state, it was important that things go smoothly. My father choose Megan "Meg" Middleman, an agent of Century 21 Masters in Pasadena (license 00149188) per a referral from a friend to sell my late mother's house in South Pasadena. Because of the state of chaos of my mom's estate I was assigned attorney in fact (given power of attorney) by my father to assist in this matter and dealings with Meg.
In August we had negotiated with Meg to list and sell the property at 1428 Oneonta Knoll, South Pasadena, CA 91030 (MLS Number: 817002062). I asked Meg if she could work on a 4% commission but she insisted 5%. However in the listing contract Meg had changed it to 6%, above industry standard, without my approval. Meg had also added "correspondence" fees and other fees to the listing contract that were not standard, in addition the listing contract itself was non-standard. When the property was listed on the market, I was assaulted at work in a hit and run and several people including myself ended up in the hospital, Meg demanded that I leave the hospital against orders and choose a buyer. I did the best to make things work and met with her to review the offers that Meg had presented to me, as its now October and the window to sell was closing. However, many of offers appeared to be scams, they were well above comparable properties in the area (comps) and they had strange letters about families and photos of children that just reeked of scam to me. I spoke with my dad and against my better judgment he agreed to accept the strongest buyer. Meg contacted me a few days later in October stating that the buyer wanted a remediation (lower the cost) due to foundation problems.
I became suspicious and asked to meet this buyer in person. Meg did arrange a meeting and I met with a very strange performance artist who seemed over the top, I said nothing and asked Meg why she brought this actor. The next day Meg informed me that the "buyer" had request to cancel. I asked Meg if she had secured the 29K escrow (typical escrow is 50K in the industry) and there was no answer. Meg began to act strangely afterwards, she would not answer any of my questions and only respond with asking me to accept the second buyer in line. At this point the window to sell had passed and I spoke with my father and we decided to fire Meg for failure to perform, as Meg said she had failed to secure the escrow and for bringing in a performance actor to play a buyer (I knew the actor as I worked in the film industry for over 30 years). We asked Meg to cancel the listing, but she wanted me to talk to her broker, Cynthia "Cindi" Rubin (license 01247521). I called and wrote to Cindi but she said "no way", I reminded her that she worked for us and we are ordering her to cancel the listing, legal under CA law as the agent (Meg) failed to perform and broke several ethics codes, not to mention we had no need to sell at this point as the window to sell was well passed. However both Cindi and Meg refused and kept e-mailing me other contracts to try and trick me into signing to accept additional buyers and to pay additional fees (not standard in the industry), even requiring me to pay them if I sold the property in the future. I refused to sign those and demanded, multiple times over the phone and via e-mail, that Cindi and Meg cancel the listing, however they refused to respond to me.
At this point I had dozens of other issues in the estate of my late mom and the assault/hit and run case to deal with, not to mention I was out hundreds of thousands of dollars of my time and Meg's failure to secure the escrow/ernest money from the first fake buyer, I had to focus my time on other matters. In November I started getting strange letters and calls from lawyers, claiming I had accepted another buyer for the property. I asked to see proof and someone had sent me some forged documents accepting some buyer, I contacted Meg but there was no response but I was promptly given a cancellation of listing contract. I then received letters from a second buyer and an agent claiming they wanted to sue me for some escrow and commission he would have made. Apparently Meg had accepted another buyer against my explicit orders and even opened another escrow.
I have since then hired a real estate lawyer to deal with this issue, and he and others have stated that this is one of the most bizarre cases they have ever seen. I was also notified by the water company that someone had let the water on and flooded the street, this suspect has not been caught yet. To recap, I have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars of my time and energy, my late mom's house is in limbo right now, Meg failed to secure the escrow, and she got strangers trying to sue me for all sorts of ridiculous things and amounts. Meg is a strange person, she only talks about making more deals, taking ridiculous risks, non-standard contracts, and apparently makes money off of fees and deals, not closing.
Meg Middleman of CENTURY 21 Masters Reviews
In February of 2017 my mother had passed away suddenly during California's tax crisis that resulted after the 2016 general election, and needed to sell her properties and acquire one out of state before any government annex. We had a very short 3 month window of time to sell the house and acquire a property out of state, it was important that things go smoothly. My father choose Megan "Meg" Middleman, an agent of Century 21 Masters in Pasadena (license 00149188) per a referral from a friend to sell my late mother's house in South Pasadena. Because of the state of chaos of my mom's estate I was assigned attorney in fact (given power of attorney) by my father to assist in this matter and dealings with Meg.
In August we had negotiated with Meg to list and sell the property at 1428 Oneonta Knoll, South Pasadena, CA 91030 (MLS Number: 817002062). I asked Meg if she could work on a 4% commission but she insisted 5%. However in the listing contract Meg had changed it to 6%, above industry standard, without my approval. Meg had also added "correspondence" fees and other fees to the listing contract that were not standard, in addition the listing contract itself was non-standard. When the property was listed on the market, I was assaulted at work in a hit and run and several people including myself ended up in the hospital, Meg demanded that I leave the hospital against orders and choose a buyer. I did the best to make things work and met with her to review the offers that Meg had presented to me, as its now October and the window to sell was closing. However, many of offers appeared to be scams, they were well above comparable properties in the area (comps) and they had strange letters about families and photos of children that just reeked of scam to me. I spoke with my dad and against my better judgment he agreed to accept the strongest buyer. Meg contacted me a few days later in October stating that the buyer wanted a remediation (lower the cost) due to foundation problems.
I became suspicious and asked to meet this buyer in person. Meg did arrange a meeting and I met with a very strange performance artist who seemed over the top, I said nothing and asked Meg why she brought this actor. The next day Meg informed me that the "buyer" had request to cancel. I asked Meg if she had secured the 29K escrow (typical escrow is 50K in the industry) and there was no answer. Meg began to act strangely afterwards, she would not answer any of my questions and only respond with asking me to accept the second buyer in line. At this point the window to sell had passed and I spoke with my father and we decided to fire Meg for failure to perform, as Meg said she had failed to secure the escrow and for bringing in a performance actor to play a buyer (I knew the actor as I worked in the film industry for over 30 years). We asked Meg to cancel the listing, but she wanted me to talk to her broker, Cynthia "Cindi" Rubin (license 01247521). I called and wrote to Cindi but she said "no way", I reminded her that she worked for us and we are ordering her to cancel the listing, legal under CA law as the agent (Meg) failed to perform and broke several ethics codes, not to mention we had no need to sell at this point as the window to sell was well passed. However both Cindi and Meg refused and kept e-mailing me other contracts to try and trick me into signing to accept additional buyers and to pay additional fees (not standard in the industry), even requiring me to pay them if I sold the property in the future. I refused to sign those and demanded, multiple times over the phone and via e-mail, that Cindi and Meg cancel the listing, however they refused to respond to me.
At this point I had dozens of other issues in the estate of my late mom and the assault/hit and run case to deal with, not to mention I was out hundreds of thousands of dollars of my time and Meg's failure to secure the escrow/ernest money from the first fake buyer, I had to focus my time on other matters. In November I started getting strange letters and calls from lawyers, claiming I had accepted another buyer for the property. I asked to see proof and someone had sent me some forged documents accepting some buyer, I contacted Meg but there was no response but I was promptly given a cancellation of listing contract. I then received letters from a second buyer and an agent claiming they wanted to sue me for some escrow and commission he would have made. Apparently Meg had accepted another buyer against my explicit orders and even opened another escrow.
I have since then hired a real estate lawyer to deal with this issue, and he and others have stated that this is one of the most bizarre cases they have ever seen. I was also notified by the water company that someone had let the water on and flooded the street, this suspect has not been caught yet. To recap, I have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars of my time and energy, my late mom's house is in limbo right now, Meg failed to secure the escrow, and she got strangers trying to sue me for all sorts of ridiculous things and amounts. Meg is a strange person, she only talks about making more deals, taking ridiculous risks, non-standard contracts, and apparently makes money off of fees and deals, not closing.