A real estate company that gave homeowners money in exchange for a pledge to use its services when they sold their homes decades later has been ordered to pay $1 million to hundreds of Georgians.
MV Realty also was barred from doing business in Georgia, state Attorney General Chris Carr announced Monday.
The Florida-based real estate brokerage enrolled more than 3,300 Georgians, nearly a third of them 60 and older, in a Homeowner Benefit Agreement.
Marketed as a free cash program, participants were given small sums if they agreed to use MV Realty’s services. Carr’s office said in a statement that the homeowners did not realize they were entering a 40-year agreement that would cost them at least 3% of their home value if they sold without using MV Realty as their agent. The charge also applied to property transfers and foreclosures.
“MV Realty took advantage of Georgia homeowners who were already struggling — scamming them out of their equity and putting their life savings at risk,” Carr said in the statement, calling the company’s actions “unconscionable.”
