Drone photography is used for ads to sell properties.
Drone photography is used for ads to sell properties.
A neighbour complained about a real estate agent using drone photography which captured his place in the for-sale advertising.
The Real Estate Agents Disciplinary Tribunal heard the appeal from the neighbour who wanted further action taken against the agent after last year going to the Real Estate Authority [REA].
Thatneighbour appealed to the tribunal to find that the agent erred because his privacy had been invaded due to the agency not acting professionally by showing his place in advertisements for a motel being sold.
The neighbour lived next to the motel being sold and the drone photography captured both places in some pictures.
The real estate principal responded by removing some photographs and altering others by blurring surroundings, the tribunal noted.
That tribunal decided to take no action and confirmed an original authority decision, heard via a complaints assessment committee last year.
That REA decision last year found against the principal agent for technical breaches of two sections of the Real Estate Agents Act but went no further. The principal agent had breached the professional conduct and client care rules, it decided.
“The committee found that the principal agent did not have a sound knowledge of the Privacy Act, a technical breach of rr 5.1 and 5.2 of the rules which did not reach the level of unsatisfactory conduct. No further action would therefore be taken in relation to the privacy issue,” the REA decision said.
However, the committee decided to take no further action because it said the photography was not real estate agency work, as defined in the act. It did not relate to the real estate transaction. The neighbour was not a party to the transaction. The conduct of the principal agent in responding to the neighbour was not connected to the transaction
The principal agent did not appeal that finding but the neighbour wanted action so appealed the REA decision to the tribunal.
Homes and drones - go together now in real estate advertising. But what do the neighbours think when their places are captured as well?
The complaint was over website advertising of the motel, located in a provincial city.
TG, the neighbour, owns an adjoining residential property, the tribunal noted, and XW was the principal agent who the neighbour complained to.
“His main concern was that the aerial shots gave a clear view of the front of his property. He noted the photograph showing the back had been deleted. The neighbour added it would be a good idea if agents made contact to say that aerial photographs had been taken. This could allow anything to be moved out of the photograph.
“Furthermore, it would be good practice if other properties were faded. It was not always about following the law, but also about good communication and common courtesy, something that had not happened here,” the neighbour said.
The neighbour then complained to the Civil Aviation Authority which said there had been a breach of the law.
“An educational advisory had been issued to the drone operator who extended his apologies. The authority did not provide consent to such operators. Consent had to be obtained from the property owners, the aerodrome operator, the air traffic service or the council - the latter if flying over a public area - as applicable,” the tribunal noted.
The principal agent told the authority that he had removed some photographs and blacked out the neighbour’s house from others following a request from the drone operator.
He informed the authority’s officer the property would be completely withdrawn from the website the next day when the sale was due to go unconditional.
This duly occurred.
The motel was sold and settlement occurred in January 2023.
But the neighbour remained unhappy about how things had gone.
So he went to the Real Estate Authority, saying his property had been shown in a Trade Me Listing.
The tribunal heard how the principal agent was not the listing agent “and there is no evidence that he was responsible for engaging the drone operator or the use of the photographs in the marketing”.
The neighbour conceded that privacy was a small part of the complaint, the focus now being the principal agent’s alleged false and misleading information given to him and the authority.
The tribunal said: “There is no evidence here of any unprofessional conduct. Not only was the principal agent under no obligation to remove any photograph, we do not know what he undertook to do when asked by the drone operator. He appears to have sought to meet the neighbour’s concerns, while maintaining the advertising, by removing some photographs and altering others by blurring the surroundings, over time.”
The tribunal, chaired by David Plunkett, backed the Real Estate Authority’s complaints assessment committee decision to reject the neighbour’s complaint against the principal agent but noted the REA finding against that principal agent for technical breaches.
Anne Gibson has been the Herald’s property editor for 24 years, written books and covered property extensively here and overseas.
