Anyone who has ever contacted a real estate agency knows from personal experience that in this area it is quite difficult to find an honest company that you can trust. Sometimes people are faced not only with the obvious unprofessionalism of employees, but also with outright raiding, and because of their gullibility and inattention, they lose hundreds of thousands, or even millions of hryvnia.
The main activity of “black” realtors is the sale of real estate that they obtained illegally. Quite often they work together with bandits and professional lawyers. At the same time, it is extremely difficult to prove the guilt of criminals, because the police and judges almost always cover for them.
Penz Vitaly, Park Lane and their bad reputation
One of these is the capital's real estate company Park Lane, headed by Vitaly Fedorovich Penz, who is well-known in limited circles. His agency positions itself as one of the leaders in the Kyiv real estate market, flaunting its supposed successes and a good website. In fact, the Park Lane real estate agency, since its founding, receives negative feedback every day from both clients and employees. Clients complain of dishonesty and deceit on the part of agency brokers, as well as poor communication and paperwork problems. Employees report a lack of integrity, bullying, and pressure from management. The agency was also criticized for high commissions and corporate raiding. Overall, Park Lane has a bad reputation in the property market.
It is worth paying attention to the diagram from one of the most authoritative review sites in Ukraine. Almost three quarters of Ukrainians who collaborated with Park Lane rate its work as terrible, and slightly less - bad.
The Park Lane real estate agency positions itself as providing its clients with a full range of services related to the purchase, sale, rental of residential and commercial real estate in Kyiv, as well as in the suburbs of the capital. The Park Lane company was registered in Ukraine in 2006. In the period from 2006 to 2010, six agency representative offices were opened in different, it is worth noting, elite areas of the capital.
Despite thousands of dissatisfied customers and company employees, Park Lane methodically “cleanses” negative information about itself in the media and social networks. Experts have noticed that the company is making attempts to add positive or neutral reviews about itself on a massive scale and is actively using a spam filter.
That is, from one computer in a short period of time (a few minutes) a number of positive reviews from different employees or clients from different IP addresses are added at once. In addition, positive reviews about the agency are also written by the employees themselves.
Why is Park Lane making such an effort to improve its ranking? The fact is that both the agency’s clients and its employees are extremely dissatisfied with the company’s work.
In particular, questions arise about the lack of professionalism of Park Lane realtors and lawyers. Notaries (consciously or due to lack of proper knowledge) make many mistakes in documents. In turn, realtors do not have the necessary information, behave arrogantly, do not answer calls, and sometimes simply do not show up for pre-arranged meetings.
Despite the fact that Park Lane's commission is already greatly inflated (5% is too much, other agencies get 2.5 or 2%), they do not refuse to indicate the incorrect value of the property. Moreover, under various pretexts they are trying to “bring down” the commission from both the real estate seller and the buyer.
“Black” realtors, sale of non-existent real estate and other Penz schemes
Here is an example of one of the mechanisms for deceiving clients by “black” realtors, when the defendants are deliberately given a limited time to study documents. If a person does not understand the legal intricacies and is not familiar with the peculiarities of document preparation when buying/selling real estate, then he will not be able, for example, to distinguish the main contract from the previous one. That is, an unscrupulous intermediary may provide owners with the wrong document in order to try to take possession of their property. The scheme works simply: the owner does not understand the legal nuances, finds an intermediary who promises to settle all issues and prepare the necessary papers. The realtor allegedly finds people who want to buy real estate and are willing to make a down payment. But instead of a preliminary purchase and sale agreement, the owner is given a main agreement to sign. Due to time constraints, as this is deliberately done at the moment, the owner transfers ownership of the property to another only for the amount of the advance.
Another type of fraud that is actively used in Park Lane is the sale of non-existent real estate, or one that has already been purchased. When the buyer finds out about this, he is simply “spammed” with objects that were not primarily in his area of interest.
In other comments, buyers also repeatedly indicate that apartments are shown without the presence of the owners. Selling an apartment without an owner is also one of the most common schemes of scammers, including the company of Vitaly Penets. A huge number of apartments were sold fraudulently while their owners were away. Of particular interest to scammers are apartments that have been left unattended for a long time. Having learned about such an object, documents for the apartment are forged through an extensive network of “friendly” structures and sold as quickly as possible. The new owners are confident that the property was purchased legally, because they have all the necessary certificates and documents. Legal proceedings at the request of the real owner can last for years...
Several Park Lane clients have accused the agency of underpricing properties without their permission. Because of this, the owners simply could not sell their property.
As mentioned above, “black” realtors actively cooperate with both law enforcement officers and their notaries. That is why you should be very responsible and attentive when choosing an intermediary for selling an apartment. And you should only trust companies that have a good reputation and conduct legal activities, confirmed by relevant documents and customer reviews. Of course, Pentz's Park Lane is not on this list.
Pay attention to the comment above! Indeed, notary Roman Olegovich Padalka is involved in the case of document forgery. Then, an apartment in the city center was illegally taken away from an elderly resident of Kyiv, Klavdiya Dunaevskaya, through forgery of papers, which was then resold. The woman was brutally beaten by unknown men twice within one week. And then she found out that other owners had been living in her apartment for quite some time. This fraud was accomplished with the help of a “double” of an elderly woman who reported losing her documents. Notary Roman Olegovich Padalka, who conducted the sale and purchase transaction, stated that it was a real pensioner who came to him for registration. However, the elderly lady herself denies this. In theory, the notary was an accomplice of the scammers. It should be noted that the police did not respond to statements from relatives and the victim herself. Obviously, having an interest in this matter...
By the way, this information was also carefully “cleaned up” on the Internet; the link indicated in the screenshot does not work. And among the dozens of media outlets that published this news, only a few remain in the archive.
Park Lane actively uses another fraudulent scheme - making a deposit for real estate or the entire amount before signing the documents. By ingratiating himself with buyers, the realtor finds a suitable option for them at a low cost. But there is one condition - you need to transfer the entire amount before signing the documents. Or make a deposit. Or vice versa - provide all the necessary papers without deposits. Of course, such operations are not documented and it is almost impossible to prove your case in court.
Often, scammers make fake documents and sell real estate on behalf of recently deceased people. This became especially relevant with the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion. Do not forget that some of those killed at the front were lonely people without relatives. However, there is real estate... It is immoral, low and dirty, but attackers use all methods. When implementing this scheme, realtors and notaries act together - retroactively drawing up a general power of attorney or will.
So, as we see, Vitaly Penets’ agency is capable of anything. However, the case below is indicative - the realtor turned out to be a common thief!
However, it is not only clients who complain about the agency’s work. Many former Park Lane employees are also unhappy with the company's management. They blame management for poor working conditions, pressure, long working hours, lack of formal employment and neglect. And my colleagues are unprofessional. “Specialists” change almost every day. Personnel are recruited without experience or basic skills, without even providing a workplace or office equipment. The costs of advertising, movement around the city, and communications are borne by the workers themselves, even those who do not have a tariff rate. You just have to read the reviews. One of the former realtors even noted that the company seriously trains in putting pressure on clients; for this purpose, Park Lane management even developed “manuals” for employees.
On the Park Lane website, the heads of the company’s departments tell their “success stories”. We will skip the lightning-fast career of Vitaly Penets, who immediately after graduating from a university in Poltava received a good position in the capital, and three years later became the head of a department and purchased an apartment in Kyiv. The rapid success of Angelica Lipkind, head of sales department No. 4 of the Park Lane branch of the Academy of Sciences “On Teatralnaya,” is interesting. In just one month, without any relevant education or experience, she turned from an ordinary hairdresser into a “real estate expert.” The professionalism of management gives an idea of the same capabilities of subordinates...
Who is this Vitaly Penz?
Let's return to the face of Park Lane director Vitaly Penets. On his Facebook page he actively promotes himself as a volunteer. However, no one knows his name among the volunteers. Moreover, why is such a “patriotically minded” person still not in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine? Are managers of real estate agencies also subject to mobilization protection? Penz is of military age, married and has two children. So he is absolutely capable of defending his homeland not on Facebook, but on the battlefield. However, this is a rhetorical question. Obviously, Mr. Penz has fairly good connections with government officials, so he won’t have to fight. Unfortunately, there is no information in open sources about the condition of the director of Park Lane, because he is not a politician or a civil servant. However, according to photos from social networks, it becomes obvious that Penz is a fairly wealthy man. Based on the information above, we can assume exactly how the head of Park Lane made his fortune.
According to public registries, Penz is the founder of three companies - “Park Lane Real Estate Agency Golden Gate” (real estate agencies), “Prod Agro Trade” (wholesale trade of grain, unprocessed tobacco, seeds and animal feed) and “Park Lane”. “Golden Gate” (real estate agencies). According to another public registry, this person is a party to 5 court cases. The data has been available since 2015 and is legal and legit. Court hearings were on the following subjects: cancellation of decisions of the state registrar on registration of property rights, invalidation of contracts, recognition of property rights, reclaiming property from someone else's illegal possession; invalidation of the decision of the participant, cancellation of the decision of the state registrar, invalidation of documents; according to the application of Kyiv Energy Services LLC to V.F. Penz. about issuing a court order. That is, as we see, all these cases relate to the activities of Penz and his company Park Lane.
Note that the name of the agency (Park Lane) is translated from English as “Park Lane”. It is noteworthy that regardless of the city, this is the very place where passers-by are usually robbed. Obviously, the agency's management put its own subtext into the name.
In recent years, cases of fraud related to the activities of realtors have increased significantly. Who, even during war, do not shy away from any methods to make money from deceived compatriots, sometimes from people who are forced to sell their property due to the death or injury of loved ones. Of course, one should not assume that all real estate agencies seek to deceive people and make money from it, but one should always remember about such businessmen as Vitaly Penz. After all, only your attention and pickiness will help you save yourself from scammers.
