Intentionally renting out foreclosures without telling the tenant continues to be a problem in southern Nevada. But what if the person you're renting from isn't just your landlord, but also a person you trust with homes -- a realtor?
When you rent from an established realtor with a legitimate company, you expect to be safe. You're dealing with someone who is supposed to know the rules and abide by them. Only this time that doesn't appear to be the case.
One realtor was renting her own defaulted houses, but it's not illegal yet.
"This is all of my Korea stuff, still," said Lisa Zoellick.
Zoellick is still unpacking for her new job at Creech Air Force Base. She found a great rental. Everything seemed fine until she got a letter in the mail that was an auction notice. She didn't know her rental was about to be sold.
"I just felt like I had gotten won over, and it really made me upset," she said.
Zoellick blames the owner of the house, her landlord and local realtor, Cynthia Glickman. For the last year and a half, Glickman has been interviewed by the I-Team as a real estate expert. Glickman is a PhD, an author, and a former mathematics professor at CSN.
But a wide- reaching investigation found Zoellick's rental isn't Glickman's only foreclosure. At one time, Cynthia Glickman owned eight different properties around the valley, each one in some stage of default or foreclosure. Several of them have already sold and many of them had multiple liens.
"I felt like I was kind of taken. We specifically asked, ‘Hey, is this house in default?' and they said no," said Zoellick.
Recorder's records show Zoellick's rental defaulted on October 16, 2008, yet Glickman and her real estate company rented it out on December 12, 2008.
When that auction notice came, Zoellick decided to stop paying rent. Instead she immediately put future rent money into a protected escrow account. She planned to pay once the default was fixed. That never happened.
Glickman promised she was working it out with the bank, yet over the holidays communication broke down.
"That's when we were trying to contact her, to get her to sign to get the trash removed, but she was in Mexico," said Zoellick.
In the end, Glickman's bank reprieve never came and in March, the house went up for auction. Zoellick was there.
It ended up in the hands of Fannie Mae. It's a better situation for Zoellick, she's still able to stay in the home for now. "I think what she did was extremely wrong and she should get punished for it," she said.
Glickman was willing to explain what happened, but then backed out. At her office, Glickman sent out an assistant to explain.
There's still no clear answer on why Glickman would rent out a house she knew was going through foreclosure without telling the tenant. "You got to admit, there's nothing that can be said that can change this. It is what it is," said the assistant.
As for Lisa, she's still looking for an explanation. "I would have expected that she would have at least apologized, that's really the most that I want from her, a face-to-face apology for all the heartbreak that she's put me through being in this house, wondering if I'm going to get kicked out," she said.
After another phone call and email, still no answers from Glickman this week. If the bill passes the legislature, what she did will be considered a deceptive trade practice and if she does it again, she could face an injunction, a misdemeanor or a yanked license.
On a positive note, Zoellick was not kicked out when Fannie Mae bought the house. She likes it so much, so has contacted them because she now wants to buy it and stay there.
Cynthia Glickman is a PhD, an author, and a former mathematics professor at CSN.
