Charleemax Realtors

Simply by entering into a listing agreement with Charleemax Realtors, you may be endangering the ability to seller your house for up to ten years or even the possibility of foreclosure!
In 2005, the Florida State Legislature passed the Commercial Real Estate Sales Commission Lien Act gave expansive rights to real estate brokers to lien the proceeds of commercial real estate transactions, but the Act specifically prohibits placing real estate commission liens on residential property with two exceptions.
The first is if the real estate broker takes you to court and is able to prove that you owe him or her money. Fair enough. You both had due process and said your peace in court. The judge made a decision and this person can lien your property just like anyone else to whom you owed money.
The other exception is when the seller signs a listing agreement in which the right of the broker to lien your property is «expressly permitted by contractual agreement or otherwise allowed by law.» (Florida Statute 475.42(j))
I found out the hard way that it is essential to read EVERY WORD of a listing agreement or face the consequences. Be careful, because the law allows a real estate broker to lien your property for ANY reason, as long as you agree to it in the contract… and you may incur tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees to remove it.
In October 2011, I was preparing to close on my house in Miami Shores when the title company discovered that a «Mechanic’s Lien» had been placed on my property. It turns out it was a lien placed on my house by an unscrupulous real estate broker, Charbel Abud with Charleemax Realtors, during a dispute that occurred years before and to whom I didn’t owe anything.
Several years earlier, I was lost my job twice in less than two years and decided to short sale my house. I decided to help out a guy at my last job who did real estate on the side. He wasn’t very good at the job where we worked together and he was an even worse real estate agent.
After a turbulent couple of years of working with this guy, my last contract extension expired with this brokerage and my house still had not sold, so entered into an agreement with someone else who I thought would do a better job.
When I told the agent I wanted to use someone else, he engaged his broker, Charbel Abud, who is perhaps the rudest, most unprofessional person I have ever dealt with in my entire life. I think the only word that comes close to listening to this unhinged lunatic scream is «violent». I couldn’t get two sentences in over his yelling before he hung up the phone. I don’t how anyone could work with a guy this abusive.
Eventually, I got a new agent who got a new contract and within a year, I was ready to close the sale of my house only to find that a Mechanic’s Lien had been placed on my house.
I went back and found that buried in middle of a long, rambling jumble of additional terms that the contract contained language granting the broker «the right to file a clam of lien against the subject property in the public record… for any Real Estate Commissions that MAY be due to the Broker.» (emphasis added)
When I signed it I believed it to mean that he would have to take me to court in order to place a lien on my house. I never expected to waive all my rights to due process and allow this broker to place a lien on my house for any reason because he thinks he MAY be owed money, but in fact, that is what the law allows.
I was shocked to find that this broker had done this to more than a dozen people over the last decade.
The law provides a detailed process that brokers must follow in order to enforce a commercial real estate lien including exact language that must be used in the contract for proper disclosure and detailed protections for commercial real estate sellers.
Furthermore, the broker can’t actually lien commercial real property itself. They can only lien the proceeds of the sale for their fee.
The broker is prohibited from placing a lien a residential properties at all unless the broker can sneak some right-​to-​lien into the residential listing agreement. Then, all of the consumer protections placed in the law go out the window because the loophole is so vague.
With the right-​to-​lien in the contract, the broker can place the lien directly on your home, not just the proceeds on the sale. No proof required of anything. Just file a paper with the court. They’re supposed to serve you with a copy of the lien, but that did not happen in my case as the court did not demand proof of service and recorded the lien anyway.
It is incumbent on the seller to spend thousands of dollars on a lawyer to remove the lien if the agent is unwilling to do so voluntarily. Your title is encumbered making it impossible for you to sell your house.
D