Realtor fined for flipping property
 

A Vancouver realtor who bought a False Creek condo from a client then flipped it a month later for $95,000 more than she had bought it for has been told by the B.C. Supreme Court to repay her profit to the original owners.

Dian Dai-Qing Gao and her realtor husband Norman Chan with Sutton-Killarney Realty were sued by a couple who put their condo up for sale in the summer of 2005.

The couple had purchased a new home in West Vancouver and listed their condo for sale at $529,900 with Gao.

They had accepted an offer for $517,500 but the day the offer was to go through it collapsed, the court was told.

At this point Gao and Chan decided to purchase it themselves. The couple testified that they were assured by Gao that the apartment wouldn’t be flipped but would be kept by the realtors as an investment.

Six days after Gao took possession of the condo it was listed for sale at over $100,000 more than she had paid for it.

Justice Janet Sinclair Prowse found that Gao had breached a fiduciary duty she had with the couple and ordered her to repay them the profit of about $70,000 she made in flipping the property.


http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/n...21dbf3&k=72745

That's good to see. I'm glad the fine went to the original owners and not just to some real estate board. I'm hoping these guys lost their real estate license.

So what was the punishment? The realtor had to give the money to the original owner, but was the realtor fined or punished at all?

she lost $70,000

$70,000 she wasn't supposed to get in the first place.

but she keeps her license?

exactly

good to see some crooks don't get away with things

But she kind of did unless she gets punished. If I rob a bank, I will still go to jail even if I give the money back.

true

and it was a civil trial - they usually only award money

It's people like this that make soem peopel not trust real estate agents. It would have been different if she really kept the property as inestments and kept it for a reasonable amount of time, at least a year minimum, before trying to flip it. Also it would have been a different story if the market took a huge swing upwards within a span of months like it did here in calgary last year. But to take advantage of your own clients, its ridiculous.

dont worry guys, the liscense doesnt hafta be suspended, no one would want to do business with the realitor again. so it all works out :)

WASN'T THERE another case similiar a few years ago - this realtor bought an old mans house in strathcona - he had lived in it for decades and was old and got taken advantage of - he sold the house for $200,000 range and the couple who bought it paid over $350,000 for it which was fair market price at the time

Yeah, there were a few probably in this hot market - the one I'm thinking of is when the realtor subdivided a guy's lot and turned around and sold it as two properties.

Call me clueless (ha ha), but I am not completely understanding the issue here.

Is it not incumbent upon the vendor of a home to have a realistic estimate of the market value of their home and to use due diligence in all matters relating to the sale of their property? The owner sold the condo to his agent with the understanding that they would not flip the property. Why the verbal agreement? Doesn't that indicate that the property owner knew that the selling price was lower than market value?

Why isn't every car dealership sued for what amounts to the same thing? Someone has to explain this to me, please.

Not all vendors have the knowledge or access to information out there. Almost by default, the agent would have access to far more info...

The vendors are often relying on the realtors for their expertise in evaluating the property. An average layman doesn't have the experience to properly evaluate real estate.

Real Estate agents have a fiduciary duty to put their clients interests ahead of their own. That duty is enshrined in law.

Car dealerships do not have any fiduciary duty similar.

The fact that the only requirements for being a real-estate agent are the ability to smile in pictures for your website and communicate at an elementary-school level do more damage. How many exclamation points after "MILLON DOLLAR VIEWS" is too many? Four, if you're a real-estate salesperson.

Stephen Levitt's book Freakonomics illustrates that real-estate agents systematically sell their own houses for more than their clients.

Of course. Now everything is making sense. I recall that when I bought my condo my real estate agent presented me with a statement saying that she was acting as my agent and bound to act in my interest. By flipping the property at a huge profit, the agent breached their fiduciary duty.

Thank you everyone.

Flipped
 

lipped ***** The sellers listed the property to mother boy friend Rafe Oake of Amex Realty not the buyer Diana Gao of Sutton Killarney Realty as listing agent. The buyers had no fiduciary duty there to the sellers at all. The Vancouver Sun made a mistake gave out wrong information. **********************************