Bella Ilyabayeva

Bella approached us at synagogue one day and asked if we would let her show us some houses. (she heard we were looking). We told her upfront we did not want her, or anyone, to be our exclusive agent, and she agreed to our terms, so we agreed to let her show us some houses. After we found one we liked she sent us a flurry of documents to sign while negotiating the terms. we didn't buy the house in the end. We did find a 2nd house with her, also tried to negotiate, also had to sign another furious set of documents, and also didn't end up buying. after that we stopped working with her. A couple months later, after having no professional contact with her, we found a house on our own, and suddenly, once under contract she made a claim to the listing agent for a full commission as our exclusive broker! somewhere in the process of that first (or second) house we were trying to buy, she apparently slipped in an exclusive brokers agreement document with all the others we needed to sign. and on both occasions we literally had a 45 minute window to sign them as they came in several at a time. Yes, our fault for not realizing, but she obviously lied when agreeing to our request to be non exclusive. and further...she knew we were working with other agents before, during and after working with her. she never said a word or said it was a problem or mentioned the exclusive agreement document we unknowingly signed. So, even though she agreed to our terms, hadn't shown us a house in over two months, and had nothing to do with the house we bought, she had the nerve to claim it as her own and wanted a full commission. she cost us thousands of dollars as we were days from closing and had no choice but to negotiate with her and her broker. Oh, did i mention she had been a family friend? its my opinion, but i wouldn't trust this woman.