When Melissa Walsh’s great uncle moved into a long-term care home in late 2021 just before his 95th birthday, her family decided to rent out the east end Toronto home he’s owned since the 1970s. The idea was to help him pay his expenses.
The family had turned to a local Royal LePage brokerage where two real estate agents helped them find and screen tenants to rent the house located just off Queen Street East near Kew Gardens in The Beach neighbourhood starting in December 2021.
That began a chain of events that Walsh describes as “the ultimate real estate nightmare.”
The family later learned the tenants chosen had used fake identity documents and bogus references on their lease application, and Walsh said police eventually referred to them as “ghosts” after trying to locate them.
What’s more, just weeks after the lease agreement was signed, the family found out that someone posing as the 95-year-old homeowner had hired two different real estate agents from another Royal LePage brokerage to list the house for sale without the family’s knowledge or permission.
The home was staged with furniture, advertised online for $1.29 million and quickly generated a flurry of offers, Walsh said. One came in at $1.9 million.
“I can’t even form words to describe that moment at that time because it’s just so unbelievably out there,” Walsh said. “You’re going, ‘What happened? What’s going on?'”
Melissa Walsh, whose great uncle’s Toronto home was listed for sale last year after someone impersonated him, says the incident raises questions about whether the real estate industry does enough to verify the identities of the people they work with. (Submitted by Melissa Walsh)
Walsh’s family was able to put an end to the attempted scam before the house could be fraudulently sold, but the case bears a striking resemblance to an investigation the Toronto Police Service (TPS) asked for the public’s help with last week, in which another family wasn’t so lucky.
In that case, police say two homeowners left Canada for work in January 2022 — the same month Walsh’s great uncle’s home was listed for sale — only to learn months later that their property had been sold without their knowledge by people using fake identification.
In an email viewed by CBC News, a TPS detective in the force’s financial crimes unit who is investigating told Walsh the two cases are “related.” Walsh said the detective subsequently told her the fake name used by the male tenant who rented her great uncle’s home was also used in the TPS case.
CBC News is not identifying the names of the fraudulent tenants as doing so may identify the victims of identity theft.
“At first, we thought it was mostly just a handful of real estate agents that weren’t doing their job, but then after hearing about this other house, I think there’s definitely a deeper problem with the real estate industry,” Walsh said.
Over the past year, CBC News has reported on numerous allegations of fake identifications and other documents being used to rent homes and take out fraudulent mortgages, but these attempted home thefts appear to take real estate fraud to an alarming new level.
Walsh says she was shocked when her family learned her great uncle’s home was listed for sale, and that two listing agents they had never hired had been granted access to the home to stage it with furniture. (Submitted by Melissa Walsh)
Red flags
Walsh said the two cases raise questions about whether real estate agents in the multibillion dollar industry are doing enough to verify the identities of potential tenants, homesellers and homebuyers.
In her family’s case, she said documentation provided by the tenants and the person impersonating her great uncle contained several red flags that the agents should have picked up on, beginning with the fact that the person impersonating Walsh’s great uncle spelled his name wrong twice when signing documents.
When screening the two potential tenants, the agents collected photocopies of their driver’s licences, contact information for their employers and personal references, and credit history checks.
The companies listed as employers had very little online presence, including no website.
When CBC called the phone numbers, those given for the employers were out of service, as was one of the personal references. The second personal reference appeared to be a wrong number.
CBC News also ran the three driver’s licence numbers through the Ontario government’s free driver’s licence check tool.
A man and a woman provided these driver’s licences when applying to rent the home. When CBC News checked the validity of the licence numbers using a free online tool, both came back as unrecognized. (CBC)
The two licences provided by the tenants on their lease application came up as “not found,” meaning they were not recognized Ontario driver’s licence numbers. The licence number provided by the person impersonating the 95-year-old homeowner on his listing application came back as “not valid,” meaning it had been suspended, cancelled or expired.
It’s unclear whether any of the agents involved ever called the references and, if they did, what response they received. It’s also unclear whether they checked the validity of the driver’s licences, or what the status of the licences would have been in November 2021 or January 2022, respectively.
‘A coordinated scheme’
In a statement, a spokesperson for Royal LePage said it doesn’t govern day-to-day operations at its brokerages, which are all independently owned and operated. But licensed sales representatives are obligated to abide by industry regulations and to perform due diligence as laid out by the regulating body.
“This very unfortunate incident was clearly a coordinated scheme aiming to take advantage of real estate professionals and an innocent family,” communications director Anne-Elise Cugliari Allegritti wrote.
“The Royal LePage agents in question followed all due protocol and had no reason to suspect that any suspicious activity had taken place.”
According to the Real Estate Council of Ontario (RECO), the industry regulator, both provincial and federal legislation requires real estate professionals to confirm the identity of all individuals, including buyers and sellers, involved in a real estate transaction.
“The most common [method] would be to rely on government-issued photo identification to assure themselves of the identity of the person they are dealing with,” RECO said in an email.
“Also, the local public land registry information about the owners of every property within the municipality, which ought to be confirmed before engaging to sell a property, is readily available to agents.”
Federal guidancedocuments that RECO identified as the industry standard tell agents they can determine whether a person’s government-issued ID is “authentic, valid and current” by viewing it in the presence of the person being identified and analyzing its characteristics and security features.
Identification can also be verified without the person physically present by using a scanned version paired with a live video chat or photo of the person being identified, according to the guidance.
ID rules too lax, realtor says
Varun Sriskanda, a realtor, property manager and housing policy advocate who was not involved in either fraudulent incident, said these requirements are too lax to prevent identity theft, mortgage fraud and title fraud.
“We only collect one piece of government-issued ID. That means that the fraudster only needs to forge one piece of government-issued ID,” said Sriskanda.
“All you need is to convince your realtor that you are that person standing in front of them and that that identity document is yours. After that, that house goes on MLS.”
Sriskanda said provincial rules should change to require agents to check at least two different pieces of ID to make it more difficult for fraudsters to dupe agents — something he said he already does as a matter of practice.
Realtor Varun Sriskanda says real estate professionals should be required to check more than one government-issued ID when verifying the identity of clients involved in real estate transactions. (Shawn Benjamin/CBC)
“They’re salespeople. They get paid if the sale closes, and they don’t get paid if it doesn’t,” Morris said. “The gatekeepers are really the real estate lawyers who handle the transaction of the purchase and sale, and they are obliged to satisfy themselves as to the identity of their clients in all cases.”
Walsh said her family’s experience has shaken her faith in the real estate industry.
“At the end of the day, you just kind of assume that these people are doing their jobs, that there are those regulatory bodies that have these rules to follow to make sure that nobody is getting their properties sold from beneath them, but clearly those systems aren’t in place,” she said.
EDMONTON – RCMP say a second suspect has been arrested in the killing of an Alberta county worker.
Mounties say 28-year-old Elijah Strawberry was taken into custody Friday at a house on O’Chiese First Nation.
Colin Hough, a worker with Rocky View County, was shot and killed while on the job on a rural road east of Calgary on Aug. 6.
Another man who worked for Fortis Alberta was shot and wounded, and RCMP said the suspects fled in a Rocky View County work truck.
Police later arrested Arthur Wayne Penner, 35, and charged him with first-degree murder and attempted murder, and a warrant was issued for Strawberry’s arrest.
RCMP also said there was a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of Strawberry, describing him as armed and dangerous.
Chief Supt. Roberta McKale, told a news conference in Edmonton that officers had received tips and information over the last few weeks.
“I don’t know of many members that when were stopped, fuelling up our vehicles, we weren’t keeping an eye out, looking for him,” she said.
But officers had been investigating other cases when they found Strawberry.
“Our investigators were in O’Chiese First Nation at a residence on another matter and the major crimes unit was there working another file and ended up locating him hiding in the residence,” McKale said.
While an investigation is still underway, RCMP say they’re confident both suspects in the case are in police custody.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
RICHMOND, B.C. – The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team says the 26-year-old son of a man found dead on British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast has been charged with his murder.
Police say 58-year-old Henry Doyle was found badly injured on a forest service road in Egmont last September and died of his injuries.
The homicide team took over when the BC Coroners Service said the man’s death was suspicious.
It says in a statement that the BC Prosecution Service has approved one count of first-degree murder against the man’s son, Jackson Doyle.
Police say the accused will remain in custody until at least his next court appearance.
The homicide team says investigators remained committed to solving the case with the help of the community of Egmont, the RCMP on the Sunshine Coast and in Richmond, and the Vancouver Police Department.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
VANCOUVER – Mediated talks between the union representing HandyDART workers in Metro Vancouver and its employer, Transdev, have broken off without an agreement following 15 hours of talks.
Joe McCann, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1724, says they stayed at the bargaining table with help from a mediator until 2 a.m. Friday and made “some progress.”
However, he says the union negotiators didn’t get an offer that they could recommend to the membership.
McCann says that in some ways they are close to an agreement, but in other areas they are “miles apart.”
About 600 employees of the door-to-door transit service for people who can’t navigate the conventional transit system have been on strike since last week, pausing service for all but essential medical trips.
McCann asks HandyDART users to be “patient,” since they are trying to get not only a fair contract for workers but also a better service for customers.
He says it’s unclear when the talks will resume, but he hopes next week at the latest.
The employer, Transdev, didn’t reply to an interview request before publication.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
