The Minnesota Department of Commerce puts out a report of their “enforcement actions” against licensees in industries they regulate. The DOC regulates MN-chartered banks, debt collectors, notaries, insurance companies, mortgage companies, appraisers, and real estate agents/brokers.
I find it interesting to see what people in the real estate field are caught doing and what their punishment is. For every person that is caught I’m sure another one or two are missed – there’s just so much to this business and so many ways for people to be bad that even if 99% are good apples that still leaves a lot of bad apples to do a lot of bad things.
Also keep in mind that all people make mistakes and as such, certain violations are more serious than others. I have talked to a few people @ the Department of Commerce and they are human just like you and me – they are there to enforce the law and to protect the public good but they are not evil nor vindictive – they seem to dispense fair justice from what I’ve seen and read.
A few years back the DOC called me and asked me about a transaction. I was scared at first but then once I realized that they were investigating someone else in the transaction I was very relieved. I’m a huge stickler for details and make sure that any action I take is one that I would be happy to defend if ever questioned about it later. Regardless of if it is a “good” housing market or a “bad” one, there is no excuse to do the wrong thing and more importantly, there is so much money to be made being honest why would you risk it?
Here it is: The Naughty People in Real Estate (and others)
Aaron… if only everyone in the Real Estate and Lending world thought the same way!! We wouldn’t need the “Look Before You Leap” campaign to protect struggling homeowners from foreclosure rescue scams.
Truth be told… we wouldn’t have nearly as big a problem in our housing market as we do, if everyone had lived by your code a few years ago.
There are careless and criminal people in every industry… it just got way to easy to do in real estate in the last decade. Hopefully the industry has learned its lesson and cleaned up its act to help prevent this in the future. Regulation has played a role in that but laws and rules only work for those that follow them so we’ll always have to be vigilant.