Under the law, it is an offence for individuals to handle property transactions if they are not licensed.
A 41-year-old Singaporean woman was sentenced on Wednesday (13 July) to pay a fine of $16,000, in default six weeks’ imprisonment, for acting as an unlicensed estate agent in relation to rental transactions involving rooms in HDB flats.
Prior to May 2013, Yee Jye Ying had pasted room rental advertisements at HDB blocks around her neighbourhood in Yishun.
In May of that year, a flat owner engaged Yee as her agent to rent out one of the rooms in her Yishun flat for a monthly rental of $500 to $650, depending on the number of tenants. A few weeks later, Yee received a call from a Bangladeshi national who wanted to rent a room with his friend.
On 9 June 2013, Yee arranged for the two Bangladeshi nationals to view the room. When they met, the two men showed Yee their work permits, but they bore other persons’ names. She then brought them to the flat and introduced them to the flat owner.
Yee eventually closed the rental transaction at a monthly rent of $600, and collected a commission of $300 each from the flat owner and tenants.
In August 2013, Yee assisted another two Bangladeshi nationals to rent a room in another Yishun flat.
On 3 September 2013, Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA) officers conducted checks on the two HDB flats, which revealed that the four Bangladeshi tenants were immigration offenders.
Thereafter, the ICA lodged a complaint with the Council for Estate Agencies (CEA) that Yee had handled the rental transactions.
Subsequently, investigations by the CEA showed that Yee did not have the authority to carry out estate agency work as she was not a licensed real estate agent.
Under the Estate Agents Act, it is an offence for individuals to act as estate agents and salespersons in any property transactions if they are not licensed and registered by the CEA respectively.
Yee also failed to carry out the due diligence checks, which includes checking the tenants’ original immigration/work or other passes for forgery, cross-checking the particulars on the passes with the original passports, and checking the photographs with the actual persons.
Property agents are also required to check with the Ministry of Manpower or employers on the validity of work permits.
Romesh Navaratnarajah, Senior Editor at PropertyGuru, edited this story. To contact him about this or other stories, email romesh@propertyguru.com.sg
