A West Vancouver realtor will have to pay $9,000 in penalty and expenses to the Real Estate Council of British Columbia after professional misconduct.
Cheryl Chih Yu Kang, a realtor at Sutton West Coast, will also have to register and successfully complete the Real Estate Trading Services Remedial Education Course as provided by the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia.
Kang was disciplined by the real estate council for providing rental property management services, which she wasn’t licensed to do.
In 2014, Kang helped her friend with management and rental of the property on Millstream Road in West Vancouver. Kang’s friend, the landlord of the property, doesn’t live in Canada, and paid some money to Kang to manage and rent the property.
Kang rented out the property to the complainant, referred to as DA in the council’s decision. The signed copy of the rental agreement included the brokerage on the signature line of the email.
Kang’s misconduct was revealed when the tenant raised safety concerns with the trees on the property and the safety of the sink garburator.
Email correspondence as recorded by the council shows the tenant decided to complaint to the council after a lack of satisfactory response to the complaints.
“I am very surprised by your lack of professionalism and the way you handle customer issues… it appears to me that you strongly prefer for us to evacuate the rental property before the contract expires as you have suggested in your text message…I would reserve the right to contact the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, and Real Estate Council of BC, advising them about your misconduct in dealing with the above issues as a realtor who rented me the property,” the complainant wrote to Kang.
Later, the tenant again sent an email to Kang raising concerns about the replacement of a toilet seat at the property and again asked for Kang’s managing broker’s contact information. The tenant stated that she would be reporting Kang’s conduct to the Real Estate Council of B.C.
“You have been introduced to us as the rental agent and you do have responsibility to take care of these issues,” she said.
The property management was eventually taken over by a licenced property management firm.
To the council’s investigators, Kang denied that she provided real estate services to the landlord or that she was in charge of rent collection or any monetary transaction.
Kang claimed that she assisted the landlord who was a friend of hers, lives overseas and was hoping to have trustworthy people looking after the rental of the property.
The real estate council, however, found that Kang had committed misconduct in assisting the landlord with the management and rental of the property, and provided property management services for which she wasn’t licensed.
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