BC real estate agent fined $14,000 dollars for misconduct

A B.C. real estate agent who allowed strangers into his home without licensed supervision and then lied during a subsequent hearing could face a $14,000 fine and six-month suspension.

Yoo Kyung (Ashley) Kim pleaded guilty to misconduct in 2021 in a consent decree application submitted to the BC Financial Services Authority, which was posted on its website on October 16.

The document details how Kim, a licensed real estate broker with Evergreen West Realty Inc. in Coquitlam, was representing clients interested in a Langley property when she allowed her husband to pose as a real estate agent on her behalf. During the investigation into the incident, Kim provided misleading information to investigators during “several interviews,” the BCFSA said.

During the May 2021 showing, the property owner noticed Kim was missing while monitoring a home surveillance camera mounted on the front door. Instead of Kim welcoming her clients – a couple and two children – to her home, it was an unknown man.

According to the consent order, when the salesperson texted Kim asking if she was home with the customers, Kim insisted she was but asked the customer to open the door for her.

The seller’s agent tried calling Kim and Facetime but was ignored.

The document describes how the salesperson, who was already close to the home at the time, visited the property to check if Kim was present and arrived as the family was pulling out of the driveway.

The salesman stopped them and asked to speak to Kim. The woman in the car said it was Kim, but when the salesperson looked her up online, the woman she saw and the woman listed online as Kim did not match.

In a telephone conversation with BCFSA, “Kim confirmed that she was on site with her buyer clients during the presentation and that she allowed the buyer clients into the property,” the document says.

When the BCFSA informed Kim that there was surveillance footage showing her not being present during the viewing, “Kim stated that her husband, who was not licensed to provide real estate services, was letting her buyer clients into the property while she was driving because she was sick with Covid,” we read.

In the consent order, Kim admitted to committing professional misconduct by failing to “act with reasonable care and skill” by failing to accompany clients to a property showing.

Kim “failed to act in the best interests of her clients” by allowing an unlicensed person to provide real estate services, and “provided false or misleading information by making various oral and written representations regarding the real estate property,” including whether or not was not present or not, and the reason for her absence, we read.

“A licensee’s dishonesty during a BCFSA investigation significantly increases the gravity of the misconduct,” said Raheel Humayun, director of investigations at the BCFSA, in a press release on the case.

“BCFSA will take additional disciplinary action against individuals who mislead investigators or otherwise fail to cooperate with investigations and fail to conduct themselves in the best interests of their clients.”

As punishment for her misconduct, Kim agreed to have her driving license suspended for six months. She also agreed to pay a $10,000 disciplinary penalty to the BCFSA within three months of the date of the consent order and to pay $4,000 in enforcement costs within two months of the date of the consent order.