Skip to main content

Realtor stowed away 25 feral cats in urine-drenched Florida home before selling it to clients: Lawsuit

It was the smell that tipped them off.

Having just closed on a Central Florida home for $200,000, newlyweds Daniel McKay and Katherine Pulker noticed a strong odor of cat urine when they went in to prepare the house for move-in day earlier this month.

In a lawsuit first uncovered by the Tampa Bay Times, the couple accuses their Realtor, Debbie Clark of Link Realty, of using the property to house nearly 25 feral cats for her animal nonprofit and then masking the strong odor before selling them the home. Failing to disclose potential problems in a property is one of the most common ways for real estate agents to get sued by their buyers, according to real estate experts.

“Ms. Clark engaged in a scheme to conceal the damage done to the property, and the noxious odors emanating from the property by, but not limited to, installing new carpet, replacing baseboards, painting over urine saturated drywall and insulation, and through the use of masking deodorizers […],” McKay’s lawyer alleges in the complaint, filed July 20.

Courtesy of Realtor.com.

The lawsuit further accuses Clark and Link Realty of negligence, breach of contract and failure to disclose hidden defects that make the property “uninhabitable.” While Clark has allegedly agreed to replace the house’s air conditioning unit and duct work, the newlyweds say they needed to hire extra workers and push back the day they can move into the house from May to early August.

3 steps to 'relist' that painful property that just won’t sell

Tom Ferry answers the question, 'Why isn’t my listing selling?' READ MORE

“We thought it would be, not a quick fix, but something we could handle quick and easy by our wedding day,” McKay told the Tampa Bay Times. “By the end of the first week, we realized we weren’t going to be able to handle it on our own.”

“We had to get contractors,” he added.”This is our first house. We’re a newlywed couple. We don’t have a ton of money.”

Neither Clark nor Link Realty responded to a request for comment on the lawsuit.

Email Veronika Bondarenko


Realtor stowed away 25 feral cats in urine-drenched Florida home before selling it to clients: Lawsuit curated from Inman

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Vacation rental company Vacasa buys Sterling Resorts

Vacation rental management tech startup  Vacasa  isn’t slowing down its ambitions to conquer the market: this week, it announced that it has purchased Sterling Resorts, a vacation management company on Florida’s Gulf Coast. Sterling has changed hands before: it was  bought by Pacifica Companies in 2015 and currently manages 450 homes. Now it will become a part of Vacasa’s effort to expand its presence in vacation destinations such as northern Florida, where Sterling is based. At the time of this latest purchase, Sterling’s home inventory was  down from 585 properties in 2015. Vacasa has raised more than $200 million since its launch ten years ago. Founder Eric Breon said he was motivated to start the company after struggling to find a satisfactory management solution for a cabin belonging to his wife’s family on the Washington coast. Now Vacasa seeks to provide rental property owners with “a seamless experience…through innovative technology and local staf...
Post a Comment
Read more

In An Era Of WeWork, Co-Working Space NeueHouse Sits Above The Fray

NeueHouse CEO Josh Wyatt Seuss Moments In today’s cluttered co-working landscape, it can be hard for companies to makes themselves heard over the din. Elevated co-working space  NeueHouse  wants to create an unparalleled experience for creatives through elevated programming and outstanding design. NeueHouse describes itself as “ a private cultural and collaborative space for prominent creatives, artists and entrepreneurs,” with current locations in Los Angeles and New York. In November, following an announcement of $30 million in funding , the company announced Josh Wyatt as its new CEO. Wyatt is a veteran of the hospitality industry, having co-founded Generator  in 2007, a chain of culture-focused hostels targeted at millennials, before moving on to Equinox to head the fitness brand’s hotel developments in New York City. Forbes interviewed Wyatt to talk about creativity, design, the gun threat incident at NeueHouse New York, and why he i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Could Ken Griffin's Penthouse Purchase Cost NYC Real Estate Buyers Millions?

'The Billionaire's Bunker' at 220 Central Park South is pictured on January 24, 2019, in New York - Hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin has completed the purchase of a four-story penthouse in the building for $238 millionm- the most ever paid for a home in the US. The building is a residential skyscraper that is currently under construction. (Photo credit: TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty Images) Getty A 2014 bill that aims to impose an additional tax on part-time New York residents—dubbed the “pied-a-terre tax”—has risen from the dead, largely in thanks to the recent record-breaking Central Park penthouse purchase by billionaire Ken Griffin. Griffin, worth an estimated $11.7 billion and No. 45 on the Forbes 400 , reportedly bought the $238 million-dollar apartment “as a place to stay when he’s in town,” according to his representatives. The purchase drew widespread attention to the financial losses that part-time and foreign property owners can cause the city. Bec...
Post a Comment
Read more