Hopefully the stuff I sent will help, and this all can come to an easy close for the OP.

Can you have the seller knock the $1500 off the price of the home in exchange for you being understanding about it and not throwing the tenant out on his ***? I have no idea how landlord-tenant laws work in your state, so I can't comment on any of the legality of what's been done. I do think you need to report your realtor to the local licensing body for her mishandling of the situation after the close. There's no way she didn't know all of the details before you signed the paperwork.

I agree with reporting it or filing a complaint about the realtor if the OP really feels that he got fraudulently handled, but if I were the seller, my response, with signed purchase agreement in hand, to a request to knock $1500 off, would be something akin to a loud fart. A contract is a contract. The OP's contract was with the seller, not the real estate agent. If it's not in the contract, it doesn't exist, is what the judge is going to say.

The chances of even being able to "throw the tenant out on his ***" before his June 1 move-out date are negligible.

Here I'd argue that I entered into the contract based on a material misrepresentation of the property, but I don't know how NY deals with those issues. And if the realtor is related to the seller's agent, she knew details she deliberately withheld until after the contract was signed. That looks fraudulent enough to go the the disciplinary route with her. When I had my RE license, something like that would get you in hot water for sure.

Actually you would be wrong.
The real estate agent is a broker when selling/buying a house and is legally obligated to report all information. One of the forums required to be filled out is a disclosure of information and question 4 on this form is, is there a current rental agreement contract or person living in the house.

Also, by the sounds of it the real estate agent has lied about the tenant living in the house, be if they said they would move out on X date or there is no rental agreement so they will move instantly. This is a huge no-no in the real estate world, the people I have spoken with on this matter have said the real estate has basically open them up to a lawsuit depending on how this plays out because of how they have handled this deal.

Had I done something like that when I was a realtor I would expect to be the defendant in a court case very quickly.

That is what I was told, especially if they did not originally disclose on the listing there was a rental agreement or event a tenet then that is a huge issue.

Yep. Especially since she is related to the seller's agent (HUUUUUUUUGE conflict of interest) it would be hard to argue in court that there were no discussions between the two of them regarding the property and undisclosed information.

The MLS listing has it as a single family. There were other issues she lied about or mislead us into thinking. The house has a deck. When I asked her if it was permitted she said yes. When I did a FOIL request, I found out she lied. I send her the info and she doesn't even have the balls to call me. She has her husband call and say they knew it wasn't permitted all along. We went back and forth and the owners are giving us money towards it. Our realtor's husband also offered us $500 cash. We said okay because we didn't want to hold up the closing. Let's just say there are other instances with her that really frustrated us and it seems to only get worst.

Hit her for fraud.

Yep, this is fraud.
Honestly at this point, it will hurt but you need to get away from the deal. If you are going to lose money then lawyer up and tie them up legally so a) the house cannot be sold and b) you get all money back you lost.

Yep. All of that. The words you should be throwing around are "triple damages", at least here in TX.

Trust me, if we didn't like the house so much and there wasn't the risk of losing $10k+.. I'd be all for it. My fiancé feels the same way and when it comes down to it, we do want this house. This is our first home and to have to deal with this BS from the people who is suppose to be on your side is such crap! It feels like all she cares about is the sale and couldn't care less about the liability of the tenant or about the other issues that have popped up. She hasn't apologized once for anything. It's seems it's always us who has misinterpreted what she said. At this point, I don't think we should go after her until after the closing. We're also getting married mid-May and would rather not start things off with a lawsuit to think about. If the deal does go south, make no mistake. She'll be the first person to get sued.

I almost forgot about this thread.
Update for those interested:

After a ton of headaches, we finally closed on the house on June 10th. It was by far the strangest business transaction I've ever experience. It was like pulling hairs with every little thing. Every professional there said the exact same thing. They've never seen anything like this and it would be entertaining if it weren't so sad. The house belonged to the mother of 3 children, all in their 40's-50's I'd say and some have not spoken to one another in 25 years. The mom is 96 and they placed her in a nursing home. A very nice lady from what we've heard. Her kids on the other hand...

When we first got there, we met the "nice" sister who just wanted what was best for their mom. She was actually pleasant to deal with and we were glad to meet her. Her siblings however, were....how do I put it, lightly...greedy, money hungry trolls. It started off quiet, but then the husband of the "nice" sister had an screaming match with the brother. The other sister and brother started fighting also and each one had to be placed in a separate room. This really answered a lot of what we had to deal with and what the realtor and attorneys had to deal with. We tried to get them to pay for the rate lock extensions and a few minor discrepancies and they took it to a vote. The nice sister said yes and the other two said no. It was only $1500 total mind you. It was hard enough to get them all to the closing so we settled for the attorney, the realtor and our mortgage agent together giving us some compensation. They wanted this whole ordeal to be over as much as we did.

In the end, their true colors really showed and I hope they all get what they deserve. They split the proceeds after all the fees four ways.....and gave the mother a disproportionally smaller share...for her own house. Granted she may be dealing with Medicare, but I doubt the siblings were doing it as a favor to protect their mom. We could literary hear them fighting over the money in the next room. They were treating this like they won the lottery.

As for the realtor, I still hate her lol....but I do understand now how all this turned into a clusterfuck. She was being told one thing from one sibling without the other sibling knowing....and since the siblings didn't talk to one another, we ended up getting the dirty end of the stick. All in all, we ended up paying $1k more than we had to. As crappy as all that went down, we still got a great deal on the house. I was tempted to tell the old owners the house appraised for $30k more than we paid...but my wife said no, lol.

Anyway, I'm a proud homeowner and ultimately feel grateful for how everything turned out. I finally have my very own two car garage for my Z. Can't wait to fix it up into something more than a storage space. Thanks for all those who helped. Cheers!:)

Congrats! Now put it all behind you and move on with life.... no time to stress about the past! Hope you have many happy memories in your first home. :tup: