Justin Warthe

When we made the difficult decision to sell our family home after 25 years, we set out to find an empathetic yet savvy real estate agent who would work hard for us. We had a prime land location and knew it was worth a good deal. We were looking for a real estate agent who would find the best deal they possibly could, all the while making us their priority. After meeting with a few agents, we settled on Justin Warthe, who said he understood how difficult this journey would be for us, and would work only for our best interests. This turned out to be a false claim that we found out the hard way. After signing with Justin, the first red flag quickly appeared. He told us that he had a buyer, and that he had been working “with” the buyer for some time. Justin was, in fact, not just working for us, but also for the buyer. To our dismay, this practice is legal in Alberta. We learned that, as we had already signed a contract with Justin, if we were to back out of that contract, we would still have to pay him a commission on the sale of our house in the following months, even if he was no longer our agent. We reluctantly stayed with Justin, as we really didn’t want to pay double the fees. Justin told us that the deal we got from his buyer was the absolute ceiling. But was it? At one point during negotiations, we asked Justin to go back to the buyer, and one other buyer who was in the mix, with our counter offer. Justin later admitted he only went back to his buyer. At this point it was impossible to trust that he was acting in our best interest. We just had to hope we weren’t leaving money on the table. The second red flag was that the paperwork that came our way from Justin constantly had multiple errors. We had to follow up almost every time a legal document was sent our way to sign, to get things corrected. We retained an excellent lawyer at Clark and Clark, who helped us navigate these muddy waters. The bottom line is this - if you retain Justin Warthe as your real estate agent, make darn sure he’s working for you, and only you. And make sure you have an excellent real estate lawyer to help you through the process. We wish we had known then what we know now.