Canadian province mulls stiffer punishment for misconduct of real estate agents

With surging housing prices in major Canadian cities, a panel investigating misconduct by real estate agents in British Columbia is calling for stiffer punitive fines to individuals and brokerages of misconduct.

The fines will be levied to a maximum of 250,000 Canadian dollars (192,000 U.S. dollars) for individuals, from the current 10,000 Canadian dollars (7,677 U.S. dollars); and to half a million Canadian dollars for brokerages, from the current 20,000 Canadian dollars.

The panel said in a report released on Tuesday that agents should no longer be allowed to engage in dual agency, also known as "double ending," in which a single real estate agent represents both the seller and the buyer.

"The current regime was set for transactions of homes, not investments," panel leader Carolyn Rogers, also the province's superintendent of real estate, told a press briefing. "Houses are no longer just homes. They are investments and this has put pressure on a regime that has not changed."

The panel calls for the "disgorging" of any ill-gotten gains obtained by an agent via fraudulent ways to be returned to a client in a process that will involve the courts. A total of 28 recommendations to strengthen investigations are detailed in the report.

Rogers said the recommendations would help the province adjust to the "gold rush" environment of the frothy housing market. Endi