Tag Archives: PropNex Realty

Agent punished for misleading potential buyer

Posted on 6 Sep 2015 | Comments Off on Agent punished for misleading potential buyer

Registered salesperson, Ho Wee Chun, Eugene, was disciplined for misleading a potential buyer that her offer was rejected, bringing disrepute to the real estate agency industry. At the time of offences, Ho was a salesperson with PropNex Realty Pte. Ltd.

Ho represented the potential buyer in purchasing a property and conveyed her offered price to the seller’s salesperson. However, before getting a response, Ho informed the potential buyer that her offer was rejected, when in fact it was still being considered.

After the seller’s salesperson informed Ho that the potential buyer’s offer had been accepted, Ho did not update the potential buyer. Instead, he tried to get her to increase her offer. She requested Ho to notify the seller that she would take up a bridging loan in order to raise her offer. In exchange, she wanted a longer period of four weeks to exercise the Option to Purchase. Ho then misled the potential buyer that he had informed the seller’s salesperson of her request, when this was not the case.

Subsequently, Ho avoided all attempts by the potential buyer to contact him. He then liaised with a salesperson from his own estate agent to purchase the property at the same price offered by the potential buyer. He represented his colleague to deliver the cheque and offer letter to the seller’s salesperson.

Ho then informed the potential buyer that the property had been taken. He misled her to believe that his colleague had marketed and closed the transaction for the eventual buyer, when he was the one who had done so.

Ho has brought disrepute to the estate agency industry, which is a breach of the Code of Ethics and Professional Client Care. He was sentenced to a financial penalty of $11,000 and a suspension of 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.

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Fine on former estate agent reduced

Posted on 21 Jun 2014 | Comments Off on Fine on former estate agent reduced

A fine imposed on a former property agent has been reduced from $18,000 to $8,000 on appeal, after Judicial Commissioner See Kee Oon agreed with the defence’s claim that it was disproportionately high, said media reports.

He also noted that the starting point for the quantum imposed by the district judge, who relied on cases involving unregistered estate agents performing the work of an estate agent, is not “entirely appropriate”.

The first to be prosecuted for moneylending offences under the Council for Estate Agencies (CEA), Ghazali Mohamed Rasul was a former registered agent with PropNex Realty.

In 2011, he received a kickback of $150 from a moneylender he had introduced to a client who was having financial problems and wanted to sell his flat.

Ghazali was then charged with two counts of moneylending offences under the CEA, with four other similar charges taken into consideration.

The CEA had urged the district judge, in its written submissions on sentencing, to impose a fine of $15,000 as well as two weeks in prison for every charge. It explained that salespersons who refer their clients to moneylenders cause serious social problems as some low-income clients have little choice but to sell their properties in order to repay the high-interest loans.

But defence lawyers Andrea Gan and Derek Kang said in their written submissions that Ghazali had “absolutely no payment or commission arrangements” with the moneylender and that the payments he had received had been offered to him.

Moreover, Kang argued that the amount involved – two payments of $150 – was “extremely modest”.

He noted that Ghazali, who had been called in for a single offence, did not only pleaded guilty to such offence, he also helped the prosecution build its case against himself after voluntarily disclosing that he also made similar referrals to three other clients.

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