Commercial PropertyRealty Viewpoint: DOJ Nails Discriminating Seller And Agent
According to the Department of Justice, a Milwaukee real estate agent and a seller conspired to prevent an African-American from buying the seller"s home. Along with the agent"s broker, they got slapped with a not-stiff-enough $35,000 fine, but I wish somebody would also slap these two dinosaurs upside the head.
We wouldn"t want to foster any stereotypes, but somebody should tell real estate agent Phyllis Hasenstab and homeowner Edith Halvorsen that Hitler lost the war.
In 2005, real estate agent Margaret Silkey was helping Tammi Doss, an African-American, look for a home. The DOJ alleges that Silkey told Halvorsen she might have a buyer for her house. Halvoren allegedly asked if the client were black and told Silkey she did not want to sell her home to a black person.
Halvorsen allegedly then hired Hasenstab to list the home for sale and also told her that she didn"t want a black person buying the home. When Silkey tried to schedule an appointment to show Halvorsen"s house once again to Doss, Hasenstab and Halvorsen allegedly amended the listing agreement to exclude Silkey from showing the property. The home was sold to a white person.
The story is all the more sickening because Doss happens to be a public servant -- a school principal in the Milwaukee school system. She must think she"s in a horrifying Jim Crow time warp, not the 21st century.
I hope Halvorsen"s financial loss will teach her a lesson, but Hasenstab should be even more accountable.
As a 20-year veteran, a CRS and a GRI, Hasenstab should certainly know better. Fair housing laws have been in place since 1968 and prohibit discimination in the sale, rental and financing of dwellings based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, famillial status, and handicap. Fair housing laws are Real Estate 101, so there"s simply no excuse for her alleged behavior.
But she couldn"t have gotten as far as she did without the omission or negligence of authorities who could have stopped this case before it began, namely both brokers, the MLS, the association, and the state association.
Why didn"t Silkey"s broker get Hasenstab"s broker on the phone and give him/her hell?
How is it possible to modify a contract to exclude a member of the same MLS from showing the house? Under what pretense?
And now that Hasenstab"s settled with the DOJ, will other action be taken by her board to prevent her from doing anything like this again?
I don"t know what it takes for an agent"s license to be suspended or lost, but the sheer ugliness of this case should certainly be a good reason.