[legion]

So back in April I listed my house with a no-service realtor. Paid a flat $500 up front, that was refundable at any time for any reason (so it says in the contract we signed).

No service really meant no service. The MLS listing was slapped together. Descriptions were all lower case with no punctuation sentence fragments. I immediately requested about 4 updates, it took two weeks to make two of them. The other two were never made. The realtor does not return phone calls, and replies to one out of every three e-mails with a single-word answer (the other two get no answer).

Fast forward to three weeks ago. I ran into another guy at work who had his house listed with the same realtor, but attempted to cancel his listing three months ago. He still has the lock box and hasn't gotten a refund. He's about to pursue legal action to get his money back. At this point, I was thinking of dumping this realtor anyway, and this cemented my decision.

So I sent him an e-mail last Friday telling him that I was canceling our contract and would like him to call me to arrange a time to pick up the lock box and drop off a refund check. I heard nothing.

After extensive deliberation, my wife and I decided to hire a full-service realtor. We drew up a list of recommendations from friends (both positive and negative) and worked through the list. The deciding factor was that we had actually met one of the realtors at some open houses and liked her.

So I set up an appointment and met with the new realtor. I explained my situation. Her response? "Oh, I take over listing from Jack all the time. This won't be a problem." She confirmed my fears that most of the realty community in Bloomington had black-listed his listings because he doesn't return phone calls--even when someone has an offer.

So now I have a new sign in the front lawn and a much better realtor. We have a game plan for getting the house sold and I'm happy with my representation.

I have zero expectation that I will get my money back from the old realtor. My questions are the following:

1) How long should I wait before filing a complaint with the local realty association? I don't want it to be too soon so that it looks like my complaint does not have merit.

2) How long should I wait before pursuing legal action? I'm thinking small claims court for the $500, but I want to give him a "reasonable" amount of time to pay.

3) Assuming I win a judgement, and he still does not pay, can I 1099 him for the debt? How does one do that?