A Winnipeg man’s registration as a real estate salesman has been cancelled after a family vacated their home on a tight deadline for a sale that never went through, then changed brokerages and, months later, got $60,000 less for their house than what they expected when they moved out.
A Manitoba Securities Commission panel found Reginald Wayne Kehler engaged in professional misconduct and conduct unbecoming a registrant when he signed a document on behalf of sellers without their knowledge, reduced the listing price of a home without their approval, and didn’t tell them for nearly a month that a potential buyer hadn’t paid a promised $100,000 deposit.
The sellers, identified as D.R. and P.R. in the panel decision released Wednesday, were awarded $10,394 from the real estate reimbursement fund. Kehler was ordered to pay $12,075 to cover costs of the investigation and hearing.
The sellers were a military family who had to move in 2020 after the husband was posted to Ottawa.
They chose Kehler as their listing agent, because he had helped them find the home when they moved to Winnipeg in 2018, and they had a good relationship with him, the panel’s decision says.
They listed their house in May and on June 15, 2020, accepted an offer of $570,000 with possession on July 15. A deposit of $100,000 was to be paid within 72 hours of acceptance of the offer.
Kehler was the salesperson for both the buyer and the sellers — but the sellers say he never told them that.
A form that indicated the sellers knew he was also representing the buyer, dated June 15, 2020, was filed.
While it appeared to be signed with the sellers’ names, they said they didn’t see it until March 2021. One of the two wasn’t even in Winnipeg on June 15.
“Kehler, in his interview with commission staff, acknowledges that the sellers never signed this document — we note that the purported signatures on the form look nothing like the actual signatures of the sellers on other documents,” the decision says.
Kehler told commission staff he’d been authorized to sign on the sellers’ behalf, which they denied. The panel found them more believable.
Once the deal was made, the sellers, believing they had just a month before the buyer would take possession of their home, quickly packed up and prepared to move with their two young children.
Buyer never made deposit
Meanwhile, the buyer hadn’t made the $100,000 deposit before the deadline — but Kehler didn’t tell the sellers.
Kehler told commission staff that was because he thought the deposit was still coming, and he didn’t want to cause more stress for the sellers.
On July 10, just five days before the buyer was to take possession and the day before the family was leaving Winnipeg, the sellers spoke to Kehler — but he still didn’t tell them the deposit hadn’t been paid.
Kehler “said everything was fine,” according to the decision.
It wasn’t until the evening of July 13, when the family arrived in Toronto on their way to Ottawa and just 36 hours before the scheduled closing, that Kehler told them he’d never received the deposit.
Eventually, they received $4,000 of the deposit, but the sale of the house never closed. The sellers scrambled to extend the insurance on their old home and make sure they continued to pay the utility bills, the decision says.
Home relisted
Kehler then recommended they relist the home, and it went back on the market at $574,900.
On Aug. 10, 2020, Kehler recommended the price be reduced to $569,900. Instead, the seller said he should reduce the price to $567,900.
But when the seller looked at the online listing on Aug. 22, it was listed at $564,900.
The sellers also asked Kehler about maintaining the property, since they were no longer in Winnipeg. He agreed he would, but friends ended up going and mowing the lawn, the decision says.
The sellers asked Kehler and his brokerage about what could be done to “make things right,” the decision says, but they never received any responses.
On Sept. 5, they hired a new brokerage to sell the home. Under the new real estate salesman, they accepted an offer on Dec. 13, and closed the deal Jan. 2, 2021, receiving $507,500 for the home.
Kehler’s actions were “contrary to the best interests of the public” and undermined “public confidence in the real estate industry,” the decision says.
TORONTO – One expert predicts Ottawa‘s changes to mortgage rules will help spur demand among potential homebuyers but says policies aimed at driving new supply are needed to address the “core issues” facing the market.
The federal government’s changes, set to come into force mid-December, include a higher price cap for insured mortgages to allow more people to qualify for a mortgage with less than a 20 per cent down payment.
The government will also expand its 30-year mortgage amortization to include first-time homebuyers buying any type of home, as well as anybody buying a newly built home.
CIBC Capital Markets deputy chief economist Benjamin Tal calls it a “significant” move likely to accelerate the recovery of the housing market, a process already underway as interest rates have begun to fall.
However, he says in a note that policymakers should aim to “prevent that from becoming too much of a good thing” through policies geared toward the supply side.
Tal says the main issue is the lack of supply available to respond to Canada’s rapidly increasing population, particularly in major cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17,2024.
OTTAWA – The Canadian Real Estate Association says the number of homes sold in August fell compared with a year ago as the market remained largely stuck in a holding pattern despite borrowing costs beginning to come down.
The association says the number of homes sold in August fell 2.1 per cent compared with the same month last year.
On a seasonally adjusted month-over-month basis, national home sales edged up 1.3 per cent from July.
CREA senior economist Shaun Cathcart says that with forecasts of lower interest rates throughout the rest of this year and into 2025, “it makes sense that prospective buyers might continue to hold off for improved affordability, especially since prices are still well behaved in most of the country.”
The national average sale price for August amounted to $649,100, a 0.1 per cent increase compared with a year earlier.
The number of newly listed properties was up 1.1 per cent month-over-month.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
MONTREAL – Two Quebec real estate brokers are facing fines and years-long suspensions for submitting bogus offers on homes to drive up prices during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Christine Girouard has been suspended for 14 years and her business partner, Jonathan Dauphinais-Fortin, has been suspended for nine years after Quebec’s authority of real estate brokerage found they used fake bids to get buyers to raise their offers.
Girouard is a well-known broker who previously starred on a Quebec reality show that follows top real estate agents in the province.
She is facing a fine of $50,000, while Dauphinais-Fortin has been fined $10,000.
The two brokers were suspended in May 2023 after La Presse published an article about their practices.
One buyer ended up paying $40,000 more than his initial offer in 2022 after Girouard and Dauphinais-Fortin concocted a second bid on the house he wanted to buy.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
