The dream of buying a house by the sea turned into a nightmare for the family: the business of the corridor lost all savings

This story began in the spring of 2018. The family, who looked at the apartment in Palanga, decided to buy it with the help of L. Žemgulyte.

There were no suspicions about this broker. Advertisements for the Elite Group company, which she manages, are turning in solid trade newspapers, and L. Žemgulytė herself sought to attract clients by posing for the cover of the popular seaside magazine Pliažas. By the way, after the scandalous affair came to light, the editors of this magazine wrote that L. Žemgulytė and they had not paid 10 thousand for advertisements. euros.

The broker disappeared with the money.

RP, who lost ten thousand sums due to this corridor, said after seeing the newly built apartment in Palanga. The man met with the vendors, who met him with the broker L. Žemgulyte.

RP immediately signed a reservation agreement and transferred 1000 euros on the condition that he could live in the apartment for a few weeks and make sure that the purchase was really suitable.

“I lived there for a couple of weeks and decided to buy an apartment,” RP testified in court. I transferred 44 thousand to a brokerage company. On July 10, we had to go to a notary to sign a contract, but L. Žemgulytė began not to respond to my messages, it was impossible to contact her. I contacted the apartment owners and started looking for it together, but we couldn’t find it. “

It soon became clear that the broker who had to transfer the money to the sellers cashed it out of the company’s account and crashed.

The situation led to a merry-go-round of courts, a man who had lost money filed a civil lawsuit, and the police launched a pre-trial investigation into the fraud.

RP tried to recover the lost money not only from L. Žemgulytė and his company, but also from the apartment owners. Still, the courts ruled that the apartment sellers are not responsible for broker scams.

It is true that L. Žemgulytė herself claimed that after collecting the money she gave it to the sellers, but could not prove it.

The Supreme Court ruled that she and her company, Business Strategists, must not only reimburse 45,000. But you still pay the same amount as a penalty for the inconvenience suffered by the buyer. The only problem is that L. Žemgulytė does not have that amount.

I tried to send behind bars

Here, however, the broker’s problems did not end, as at the same time he sat on the bench where he had to answer the accusations of fraud. Although he did not plead guilty, the Klaipėda Regional Court sentenced L. Žemgulytė to 2 years in prison and ordered him to stay overnight.

Such an outcome of the case did not satisfy the victim’s PR, he wanted L. Žemgulytė, who was raising young children, to think about her behavior while sitting behind bars. In his complaint, he stated that the sentence imposed was too lenient and contrary to the principle of justice.

“Considering the fact that the convict has minor children, it is likely that she will be home from 11pm anyway. Until 6am, so no punishment was actually imposed on her. , the punishment was formal, symbolic “, – RP taught in the complaint

In addition, in their opinion, the court did not take into account the experiences of their family: instead of a house by the sea, they lost several years of savings.

“The loss of money left a broken family’s dream of buying a comfortable new home for a quiet life,” he complained.

The man also drew attention to the fact that L. Žemgulytė not only did not regret his actions and did not admit his guilt, but avoided going to the police for questioning and instead went on vacation with the children. abroad.

“It shows that he was not only indifferent to the pre-trial investigation against him, the preventive detention in custody, but that he made no effort to compensate for the damages; he was able to use the travel money for compensation, but he did not. These circumstances do not show that L. Žemgulytė is worthy of such pity as the court of first instance demonstrated, ”the complaint reads.

L. Žemgulytė herself claimed that she gave the money to the sellers, but constantly changed her testimony and was unable to prove her words in any way. Therefore, the court did not believe the broker’s excuses.

„L. To seize the property belonging to RP, Žemgulytė deliberately used fraud against him to act on behalf of the property seller, entering into contracts and receiving money, and this fraud was substantial, which led to the victim’s decision to transfer money to the . Žemgulyte and his company. According to the panel of judges, the preliminary objective of the seizure of the property belonging to RP is, in addition to the circumstances discussed above, to provide false information about the owner of the real estate property and power of attorney on behalf of the seller, breach of execution mortgage and mortgage. , the inclusion of a bank account in the advance agreement is also confirmed by the behavior of the convicted person after RP transferred 44,000 euros to the bank account of the company under his management, avoiding meetings with the latter, without answering the phone and only promising that everything will be resolved and the transaction will be concluded, “he judged.

However, the court did not honor the victim’s wish to incarcerate the rogue broker and upheld his 2-year prison sentence, requiring that he be home from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. unless it was related to work.

A lesson for buyers

As the housing market heats up, more stories are being released to the public and more. Delfi recently described the approaches of equity broker Kęstutis Juozėnas when it disappeared with the money of dozens of clients.

To avoid similar situations, you should first be concerned if the broker asks you to transfer money to your account and not directly to the seller’s account.

In addition, the buyer must actively collect information about the property he is buying. As the courts noted when examining the civil case against L. Žemgulytė, the RP himself was not diligent enough.

Before paying the money, he was unsure and did not ask if the broker was authorized to act on behalf of the sellers, nor did he require details on who the real owner of the home was.

In addition, he did not even review the information of the property acquired in the records, although it is necessary to do so before acquiring the property.

“The plaintiff had (could) have access to data in public records, he had a duty to take active steps to use all legal possibilities to obtain the data that was important and necessary for him. Despite not receiving an extract from the Real Estate Registry, the plaintiff entered into an advance settlement and transferred the advance of 44,000 euros to UAB Verslo Strategai and not to the bank account of the seller of the real estate property, as specified in the clause 5. of the advance agreement ”, the court ruled.

A detail was hidden from the buyer that the apartment that was being bought was seized, so normally he would not have been able to acquire it, he would have to obtain the permission of bailiffs and creditors. In addition, it was only later that he learned that the house he was buying was registered as a rest area.

All of these details, as the court noted, could and should have been discovered by the buyer himself, but he did not.