A Dartmouth Realtor is in the doghouse with her regulatory body for taking a hound named Snoopy from a tenant in a home she was trying to sell.
The Nova Scotia Real Estate Commission suspended Sarah Sullivan of Century 21 Trident Realty Ltd. effective Jan. 16 until Feb. 15 for violating the province’s real estate laws. Sullivan has also been ordered to pay $2,500 in fines.
“The violations resulted from an investigation of a complaint from a member of the public. The complainant, who owned a dog, was a tenant of a property that was listed for sale. Ms. Sullivan viewed the property with a potential buyer,” said the decision from the commission.
“At a later date, Ms. Sullivan approached the complainant, and asked if they were interested in selling the dog, which they advised they were not. Ms. Sullivan offered to take the dog while they moved out of the property.”
Threatened to use inside info
Sullivan took the dog and failed to return it, said the decision.
“In response to efforts by the complainant to have the dog returned, Ms. Sullivan inappropriately used or (threatened) to use information she acquired only as a result of her access to the property as a real estate licensee. When the matter was investigated, she provided false/misleading information to the investigator on several occasions.”
This isn’t the first time she has been in trouble with the regulatory body.
“Ms. Sullivan had previously been disciplined in 2014 for providing false information to the commission during the course of an investigation.”
‘Dishonourable’ conduct
Sullivan’s actions hurt the profession as a whole, said the decision about taking the dog.
“This conduct is dishonourable, unprofessional, harmful to the best interests of the public and to the reputation of the industry at large. The public must have confidence that when they provide access to their property to members of the profession, that their privacy will be respected and information shall be gathered, used and shared, only for reasons related to the trading in real estate. Further, it is a violation to provide false/misleading information to the commission.”
Sullivan, a mother of four, declined to comment when reached Monday by telephone.
“I am unfortunately not able to discuss or disclose my side of the story,” she said.
Brother still looking for dog
A Dartmouth man named Robert Smaggus said in an email to The Chronicle Herald that the dog in question, named Snoopy, belonged to his brother.
“I have been looking for him since June 4, 2020,” Smaggus wrote.
He said he complained about the missing dog to police, but was told it was a civil matter.
He also noted in his email that he contacted Patricia Arab, the minister responsible for Service Nova Scotia, but was told she couldn’t intervene in the case.
“Where is the accountability?” Smaggus said. “Where is Snoopy?”
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.
