A property agent with PropNex Realty was recently suspended for misleading a potential buyer that her offer on a property was rejected, revealed the Council for Estate Agencies (CEA) in its bimonthly newsletter.
Ho Wee Chun, Eugene represented the potential buyer in the property purchase and conveyed her offered price to the seller’s agent.
However, Ho told the potential buyer that her offer had been rejected before getting a response from the seller.
Subsequently, Ho did not update the potential buyer when the seller’s agent informed him that the offer was accepted. Instead, he tried to persuade his client to raise her offer.
As a result, she asked Ho to notify the seller that she would take up a bridging loan to increase her offer. She also requested that the period to exercise the Option to Purchase (OTP) be extended to four weeks. Ho then misled the potential buyer that her request had been conveyed to the seller’s agent, when in fact he had not done so.
Thereafter, Ho avoided the potential buyer’s attempts to contact him and liaised with another agent from his agency to purchase the property at the same price offered by the potential buyer. Representing his colleague, Ho delivered the cheque and offer letter to the seller’s agent.
He then informed the potential buyer that the property had already been sold, making her believe that his colleague closed the transaction for the eventual buyer, when it was really he who facilitated the sale.
For breaching CEA’s Code of Ethics and Professional Client Care, Ho was fined $11,000 and suspended for seven months, with two other suspensions of six months and one month running concurrently. He was also ordered to pay fixed costs of $1,000.
Romesh Navaratnarajah, Singapore Editor at PropertyGuru, edited this story. To contact him about this or other stories email romesh@propertyguru.com.sg
