Do not, I repeat, do not use Ed Siffledeen as your realtor if you live in Edmonton and you want to buy or sell a house. I know I've complained about him before, but the events of the last day really were the icing on the cake.

When we bought the house, we had negotiated a credit from the seller to be given back to use after closing to help pay for deficiencies in the house (the foundation, etc); the idea was - and it was Ed's suggestion, which he strongly pushed - that we have liquid cash to help pay for the repairs.

Kirsten felt that there was something fishy about it, but Ed constantly assured us that it was perfectly legitimate, and done all the time, and that there would be no problems at all. We decided to trust him, since he'd been working hard for us to get the seller to lower the price.

We went forward, at his strong urging, to the mortgage broker with all the paperwork, the lawyer talked with the mortgage company, and everything was "going fine". Ed constantly assured us that we shouldn't worry about anything, it was done all the time, and there wouldn't be a problem.

There was a problem. A big problem.

Yesterday, we almost lost the house and all the money we've put into it so far, because it wasn't fine. Ed Siffledeen did the paperwork wrong, and instead of putting the seller credit in the statement of adjustments - where it was perfectly legal and proper, he adjusted the purchase price of the home to a lower figure after we'd gone to the bank. Which put us extremely close to having committed mortgage fraud, according to our lawyer. In fact, the only thing that had stopped it from being mortgage fraud was that the bank refused to allow the seller credit, and instead put those funds towards the home's equity.

However - and this is the part that nearly cost us the house - we had to pay an additional $5900 YESTERDAY, in order to not forfeit the sale. So, essentially, Ed Siffledeen's error cost us $5900 out of our pockets (though we are not losing money - we get it back when we sell the house).

So let me just repeat. If you are in the Edmonton area, do not use Ed Siffledeen.