Real estate boss denies snooping charges

Photo / NZ Herald

A South Island real estate boss has denied snooping and lying charges involving a former employee.

Joseph Gerard Brankin, a licensee, director and branch manager at Darfield's Matson & Allan Real Estate, has denied disgraceful conduct for the way he dealt with former employee and agent Rosemary Anne Smith.

The Real Estate Agents Disciplinary Tribunal sitting at Addington in Christchurch, will hear the case next Thursday.

Brankin is accused of telling her a complaint was laid against her with the Real Estate Institute when none was made, saying clients had refused to deal with her, accusing her of being dishonest with him and clients, restricting her listings and hours in the office, accessing her private emails and disclosing private and confidential details to a client.

Smith said the system was "flawed beyond belief" and she is annoyed the case has taken so long to be heard.

Even before the hearing, she says is planning an appeal.

"My advise to date is that the process is totally flawed, and that an appeal is well, well within my rights," she said last week.

Two other cases will go before the tribunal in Auckland later this month and early next month.

Three days have been set down for the case against L.J. Hooper licensee Daphne Brown, charged with seriously incompetent or seriously negligent real estate agency work over the sale of a Zest apartment in Auckland.

"As principal officer of the agency, she allowed it to market a property in such a way as to create the impression that the agency was acting for the purchaser when its duty was to act in the interests of the vendor and permitted it to provide misleading information to the complainant in the marketing of the property," the charge said.

A two-day hearing is set for the case against Ram Vinodh of Top One Real Estate Manukau, charged with a wilful or reckless contravention of rules for providing false information about the address of a property, false information about the current valuation of a property, misleading a consumer about the listing price of a property and submitting an agreement for sale and purchase to a purchaser for signature without all the material particulars inserted.