By ANNE GIBSON
A real estate firm has been punished after one of its agents did not disclose he was selling a vendor's house to another agent.
In October 2002, Frank Keegan engaged agents Cooper & Co, trading as Harcourts at Glenfield, to sell his home at 637 Glenfield Rd.
Keegan said Cooper
& Co agent Darren Laskey told him the house was being sold to a Chinese family. But the house was instead sold to Laskey's colleague Matty Ma.
The case went this year to the Real Estate Agents Licensing Board, which rejected an application from the Real Estate Institute not to renew Laskey and Ma's licences but expressed concern about the matter.
The North Shore District Court awarded Keegan a refund of the $13,362.50 commission and $5000 for damages.
He sought the money from Cooper & Co licensee Martin Cooper. The money was paid in full early last month.
Specialist property law barrister John Waymouth said this type of behaviour from agents was only too prevalent.
But consequences of breaching the section of the Real Estate Agents Act 1976 which compels disclosure about deals between agents were very severe.
"I encountered a similar case only a week ago where the real estate company had to refund the commission," he said.
"The salesperson was caught out by the vendors, who called in at their former house to retrieve a cat and found the agent living at their former house."
