Brent Lewis

We have now worked with Brent Lewis across three transactions, which in hindsight, was a huge mistake we kept making out of misplaced loyalty. The pattern of poor service began in 2015 on our sale and purchase, Brent put a move-out date into the contract and confirmed the buyers would be flexible on it; that flexibility never materialized, and we ended up having to pay considerably extra out of pocket just to secure a two week early access to the home we had purchased. On the second purchase his lack of attention to detail meant we discovered after the fact that the property tax was well over what had been declared. It was also never flagged that the property was not on mains water with a significant ongoing cost for water that is of poor quality and does not meet Costal health standards. Future costs are quoted in the millions to fix the water system. Boil-water advisories frequently occur. On our most recent experience, the sale of our Vancouver home, the problems were serious enough that we ultimately had to dismiss him. The pricing strategy was erratic and damaging to our position. The property was listed at $2,299,000, then dropped to $1,999,000, then confusingly raised to $2,150,000 a week later. This kind of inconsistency reflects poorly on the sellers and undermines buyer confidence. When we raised concerns about it, Brent told us "no one will see the previous price”, which simply isn't true, since price history is fully visible on MLS. The property was also marketed as a three-bedroom when it was one bedroom and an open loft, a fundamental misrepresentation that wasted our time and every buyer who viewed it. When we questioned this, Brent said it was the only way to "get people in." Rather than commissioning a new floor plan following our significant renovation, he used the old, incorrect one which still only showed 2 bedrooms. The information in the listing was wrong and when I questioned it I was told ‘that’s an Ai mistake”, surely you would check the listing before publishing! The most serious issue, however, involved our neighbours, who had been trespassing and engaging in deeply troubling behaviour for over a year. We had given Brent explicit written instructions, with photographs from trespassing incidents and clearly stated that these individuals were not to be granted access to our property under any circumstances. We also agreed no showings without an appointment & realtor. He allowed them in regardless, then he lied & claimed he did not know who they were. Doorbell camera footage lasting over three minutes clearly showed the neighbour identifying himself and pointing to his own home. In that conversation Brent disclosed to him the location we now lived, a serious breech in privacy. When I contacted Brent to express how distressed and violated we felt, that these neighbours had now been inside our home, Brent did not even call to discuss. This incident emboldened the neighbours to escalate their behaviour further. We went without an open house and a sales board specifically to keep these neighbours out of our home, a disadvantage in selling that was then completely undermined by Brent letting him inside anyway. We had no choice but to dismiss him and engage a new agent, Ben Chimes, who sold the property in under a week. He achieved this through proper photography, a video walkthrough that had never been done under Brent's tenure, and genuine engagement with prospective buyers, something that had been entirely absent previously. Brent's erratic pricing left us anchored to a lower sale price despite the assessed value being $171,000 above what we ultimately accepted. To add insult to injury, however, Brent is still set to collect the full commission on our concurrent purchase of a Victoria apartment, a property he never once visited despite being urged to do so by the seller's agent. After the dismissal from the sale transaction, we didn't hear from him for months, and what followed after that was a handful of largely useless emails that just kept deflecting the blame on the Island realtor. We were left to manage the Victoria closing coordination ourselves, including navigating a conflict of interest by dealing directly with the seller's agent. Despite this conflict, they tried to fill the void as best they could. The sellers on that purchase also repeatedly changed the move date — from June 25th, to mid-July, and back to the original end-of-August date. Since we couldn't move on that date, we had to negotiate a slightly earlier date directly with the sellers' realtor ourselves. In situations like this, where an agent has made no effort to have any presence on the island, it would be standard practice to pay a 25% referral fee to the agent who actually did the work. Brent has not done this, another example of a man with no ethics. On that same Victoria purchase, Brent failed to include a holdback clause. This is one of the most basic, standard protections in a real estate contract. The sellers were able to delay access until after completion, and because of the holdback omission, we had no leverage left to withhold funds. We were completely dismayed on move in to see that none of the deficiencies had been done. It has been incredibly distressing to find myself doing the work Brent should have been doing all along, only to discover that the one basic safeguard that should have protected us was never in place. The only avenue we now have to get these deficiencies fixed is taking the sellers to Civil Resolution Tribunal, a process no one needs on top of everything else this has already put us through. Throughout all of this, there has been nothing but deflection on Brent's part. He blames everyone but himself, the sellers, the other agents, us, for problems that trace directly back to his own failures to do the basic work of his job. Despite everything, Brent has collected that commission on the Victoria purchase. We are the ones who absorbed the losses, the stress, and the work he should have been doing. Has Brent done the right thing and offered to pay for the deficiencies out of the commission he did nothing to earn, of course not. We would definitely not recommend Brent Lewis under any circumstances. - Liberty