He instructed his lawyer to withdraw his offer and then phoned the realtor whom he says was obviously disappointed.
“Then he requested that I change the reasons to being a lack of finance rather than the builder’s report,” the witness told the tribunal today.
“He mentioned that if it was a builder’s report then that would have to be disclosed to subsequent purchasers.”
The man said that he was “taken aback” because he’d already told his lawyer that it wasn’t something he was going to engage in.
The complaint was actually lodged by the author of the builder’s report rather than the prospective buyer.
According to the Real Estate Authority a realtor must disclose that a property has failed a builder’s report.
By way of explanation, the realtor said that it was simply a misunderstanding and that he’d been trying to explain to a buyer, who hadn’t purchased a property in New Zealand before, how the system worked.
“I was aware he’d never bought a property here. I wanted him to be aware of what happened,” he said.
The realtor said he wasn’t trying to convince the buyer to change his mind but “it was just me ham-fistedly trying to explain the process to him”.
“If anything I was trying to over-explain it to him. I just wanted him to understand how this bears out in the future. I couldn’t change his mind - he’d already done it.”
The property itself was put on the market shortly before the Covid pandemic hit the country in 2020 which meant no one could actually come and view it. It also had another offer that fell through due to another buyer’s issue with the title.
Counsel for the Complaints Assessment Committee prosecuting the realtor, Elena Mok, suggested that it would have been frustrating for the realtor to have the sale fall through again.
“I’m never surprised when something comes up on the builder’s report… it happens all the time. If they want it then we’ll proceed, and if they don’t well, that’s why we get those reports,” he said.
He conceded the builder’s report was “pretty bad” with issues with waterproofing in one of the bathrooms and remedial work needed in the garage and further investigation needed on the property’s deck.
The report recommended remedial work at a total of $90,000.
“This is the nature of our industry, if the builder’s report is bad you just have to move on,” the realtor said.
In her closing submissions, Mok said the witness wasn’t the complainant and didn’t have a “stake in the game”.
“The Complaints Assessment Committee says that he was trying to persuade him to change the reason for withdrawing his offer because that different reason would be less-off putting to future buyers.”
She said there would be no reason for the realtor to explain what would happen with the purchase process for future buyers unless he was trying to convince the other man to change his reasons for withdrawing.
“What makes sense is that he was under a lot of strain at the time and this was the second offer that had been withdrawn in as many days,” she said.
“It proposed a real hurdle in being able to sell that property in the future.”
The realtor’s lawyer, Richard Hern, told the tribunal that his client admitted the charge of unsatisfactory conduct but denied that it was malicious.
“It was not a deliberate attempt to deceive… it was effectively his mouth running away from him,” he said.
“He spoke before he thought carefully about what he was saying.
“It was not sinister.”
The tribunal will make its decision within four weeks.
