Rhode Island Real Estate Agent With History Of Playing Fast & Loose With Homebuyers' Contract Deposits Hit With Emergency License Suspension For Failing To Tender Customer's Money To Employer For Deposit Into Firm's Escrow Account

In Providence, Rhode Island, the Providence Journal reports:

• The state's Department of Business Regulation has issued an emergency order to summarily suspend the real estate salesperson's license of John Paliotta, after clients accused him of mishandling their $6,000 deposit check for a property in West Warwick.
  
  According to the DBR's order, signed July 1 by Director Macky McCleary, Paliotta asked his clients "to make the deposit check out to him, not Coleman Realtors," on Oct. 13, 2015. The deposit accompanied a $200,000 offer for a short-sale property at 5 Queen Anne's Court, West Warwick.
  
  Then, on Nov. 4, 2015, Paliotta "advised the complainants to submit a second, lower offer for the subject property," for $193,500, "with a deposit of $200 cash," the order added.
  
  The emergency order said neither deposit was ever tendered to Coleman Realtors for deposit into Coleman's escrow account. On March 23, 2016, the clients told Paliotta they planned to contact Coleman Realtors, according to the DBR. Paliotta, who worked in Coleman Realtors' East Greenwich office, responded: "'Now you are [expletive] with my livelihood. Do not call Coleman Realty. I took this one outside the box,'" the order stated.
  
  The clients met with Michael Young, principal broker of Coleman Realtors, on April 19, and Paliotta was terminated from the agency that day, the order added. "During the investigation, the Department received evidence of at least two additional real estate transactions in which Respondent was involved from July 2015 through December 2015 that failed to comply with the relevant law. ..."
  
  State law prohibits real estate agents from depositing clients' money into their personal accounts.
  
  In 2011, Paliotta, then working for a different agency, was fined $7,500 for depositing a $5,000 check from a client into a personal bank account. That client's offer to purchase real estate was never delivered to the sellers, DBR said at the time, adding that it had evidence that Paliotta "had listed, offered and/or participated in a significant number of real estate transactions which dated back to 2006 in which he solicited and accepted deposit funds made payable to himself personally or his wholly owned corporation, Diamante Realty." Paliotta could not immediately be reached for comment.

For more, see R.I. suspends real estate agent's license after client accusations (DBR: John Paliotta asked clients to make checks out to him, not agency).