December 2023 by James Banks
My wife and I met Jonathan Burke when he was working an open house, and we believed that he was nice and knowledgeable. We secured his services, or at least we believed that we had secured his services as a buyer's agent to represent us in our purchase. We sent homes to Jonathan for us to view. The second day that we set out to view homes, Jonathan set everything up, and every home was either occupied or we were not able to unlock the lock boxes on to gain entry. We were horrified in one home as we had actually awakened the sleeping homeowner who was in bed as he worked overnight. He was as startled as we were to see us in his home. At every home, the homeowners claimed that they did not know that there was a showing on that particular day. Come to find out, Jonathan had actually booked every single showing on a different day than the actual day that we had agreed to meet him. So yes, we were, in fact, in people's homes without their prior knowledge of our arrival, and, in one case, lucky for us, the homeowner did not awaken and meet us with a firearm in hand. I felt absolutely terrible for those sellers and was embarrassed to be in those situations after finding out the truth. My wife and I ended up going with a new build for our purchase. We let the builder know that our buyers' representative was Jonathan Burke. They indeed reached out to Jonathan and let him know the situation. We also let Jonathan know the situation. Jonathan signed the paperwork with the builder as our representative. Fast forward one month, the deal is falling apart due to a low appraisal, and I am using a VA loan. We notified Jonathan that we didn't understand what was happening, and at that time, he finally stepped in to "help." I telephoned Jonathan to let him know that I pinned the collapse of the deal on his complete lack of representation and complete lack of involvement in the process. He took zero responsibility for the situation, stating that I should have "kept him in the loop." He stated that he had not communicated with the builder representative since the day of the contract. He even stated that he is representing another couple who are also purchasing from this same builder and that the builder representative on that deal has communicated with him almost daily. When I asked him if he believed that it may be odd that, with this same builder, one representative keeps him informed and another completely did not and given that mine was not keeping him informed that maybe he should reach out to inquire? The answer is "No"... it apparently did not occur to him. Jonathan will unlock the front door for you, but after that, you are on your own and when he abandons you, he will attempt to make it your fault for not "informing him" when the whole time, my wife and I believed that everything in the deal was going as planned and at no time did we know that there were issues that were not being addressed. If Jonathan was an actual buyer's representative, then he would have known that things were awry and those issues could have been handled. We essentially showed up every step of the way with no representation, and according to Jonathan, it was our fault for not realizing there were problems.November 20, 2023 Update - Just signed the closing paperwork. Don't worry, we were able to represent ourselves just fine and get everything worked out as needed to make this all happen. Please don't spend the $14,500 disbursement in one place. You didn't earn one red cent of it.
