The realtor whom we purchased our home from is using our house on her website as a rental house (it is a vacation rental, but not through her). She did not obtain permission from us and refuses to take it off the site. Is there anything we can do?
Maybe. This is murky enough, I would strongly suggest you talk to a lawyer.
I do some commercial photography as a side job. When shooting property, I usually get a property release from the owner or a legal representative. In theory even if the property changes ownership in the future, I would still maintain my legal rights to use those photos as agreed to. That may include both resale and advertising uses.
In your case the image may have been properly released to the photographer and/or their clients (including the realtor). Odds are this isn’t a photo of “your” property. It is a photo of the property before it became yours. It is a fine distinction, but an important one. If everything was done properly, there may be nothing you can do.
One of the things a lawyer could do for you is to demand to see a property release and a proper legal transference of the rights to use the image. If they haven’t maintained the proper trail of documentation, you may be able to get them to back down.
Can you explain why you have a problem with this? Unless it’s a picture you took, it’s not your intellectual property.
I’m not sure she really needs your consent to use the picture legally, but as a real estate agent myself I’m kind of surprised that she would not take it down, especially if you were past clients. There’s no profit in antagonizing your past customers needlessly as real estate agents (smart ones at least) want to have referrals. I would suspect there’s more to this story than outlined in the OP.
If she really is being uncooperative I would suggest talking to her broker. Using someone’s house picture when they do not want you to is not good business practice.
But it’s his house, which can be recognized from the picture. That raises the possibility that various people – friends and/or total strangers – might make some association between him and this realty company (or whatever else accompanies the picture) that he might not care for.
Am I missing something? If a house is listed, can’t any agent can attempt to bring in rental clients?
Go talk to Google Maps. They own images of your house from the street and from overhead. Those images are not your property.
Hmmm… my friend found something similar. He was looking for a house, read a real estate agent’s brochure, and went to look at the property. When he liked it, he brought his own “buyer’s agent” (family friend) into the picture. The other agent went ballistic. They found out he was not representing the seller, he just took pictures from other agents’ sites and made up his own brochure hoping to get in on the action. As agent for neither buyer nor seller, all he’d done is bring 2 other agents together to make a tidy commission on a half-million dollar sale.
Apparently he showed up on their doorstep not long after they moved in screaming about how much money they had cost him. My friend had to threaten to call the police. So not all agents are calm or rational, or straight-forward.
Realtors depend on word of mouth. In the OP’s shoes, I would contact the realtor and explain that unless the picture was removed I would make it my life mission to steer people away from her.
And again, the issue is not who owns the images. The issue is that his house is being actively presented to the public in a setting that he might not care for. It’s akin to finding a picture of yourself being used in an ad campaign without your permission or even prior knowledge. The legalities may not be the same, but the discomfort is similar – Hey, this is MY face, or Hey, this is MY house, representing a commercial interest that I don’t want to be associated with.
Why is this a problem? If you want to rent your house (“it is a vacation rental”), wouldn’t it be to your advantage to have it shown in as many places as possible? And unless you have a contract with the agent, you owe her nothing. Sounds like she is doing you a favor.
Just to be clear. Your home is for rent as a vacation rental. You have it listed with a particular broker, A. Another broker, B, is also advertising your home as a rental property. So if B brings a renter in for your property, they will bring them to A, whom will share their fee with B, and you will receive the rental income. What’s wrong with that?
If I was renting a property, I would want to have as many folks trying to bring quality renters as possible.
Given the bolded part of the OP, your scenario is not the case. (Unless there’s an MLS the OP isn’t aware of.)
It definitely sounds like the second broker found your house on a multiple listing service and used the picture. The real estate agent who sold you the house spotted it and is now listing it. That’s how MLS works. You probably signed something for your current rental agent allowing them to use the photo, and it probably includes listing it on MLS.
Maybe I’m confused here. I was under the impression that the OPs’ prior agent was just using the house as background eye candy for her site. If the house is listed for rent and the the OP’s prior agent is merely displaying that other listing agent’s listing on her website as an available property in the area I’m not getting the OPs ire.
Lots of residential real estate agents do this where they aggregate the area MLS listings on their site so people visiting the site will call them. As a seller or renter you always want as much exposure for your property as possible. It’d be abjectly stupid to restrict any agent from having your house for rent as part of their site.
If any real estate agents want to put my listings on his or her site and bring me a deal knock yourself out!