North Shore real estate agency chief Martin Cooper, of the Harcourts Cooper & Co agency, has been censured and fined after being found guilty of misconduct for failing to provide information seven times throughout eight months.
The Real Estate Agents Disciplinary Tribunal fined his agency $10,000. Cooper personally was fined $5000 with costs of a further $13,556, amounting to $28,556 in total.
A complaints assessment committee emailed him seeking information when it was probing the actions of one of his salespeople.
Yet Cooper showed a sustained failure to provide information and comply with the law, which should have been foremost in his mind, the decision said.
The gravity of the misconduct was at the mid-range.
Cooper told the Herald today he would not appeal the decision.
“As I said at the time, we deeply regret the administrative errors that led to this occurring, during a period where our business was experiencing significant pressure from the unprecedented economic and regulatory pressure experienced by all Kiwi businesses during Covid-19, and as a result of the significant downturn in residential sales activity that emerged in 2022,” he said in a statement.
Ultimately, the issue before the tribunal was whether his failure to provide the documents was reckless, he said, disputing the tribunal’s findings.
The decision said: “The tribunal concluded that having considered all of the circumstantial evidence as a whole Mr Cooper, and consequently Cooper and Co, were reckless in their failure to provide the requested information required.”
There was a sustained pattern of non-compliance with the lawful request, which was a serious matter.
An investigator assigned to the matter sought the information from Cooper seven times:
Cooper said he would get the information but later said the managers of the salesperson who was the subject of an investigation were overseas, and the branch was shut with files in storage.
It wasn’t until February 2023 that Cooper’s lawyers provided a response with details of the background events and an explanation about why there had not been compliance.
On December 5, 2023, documents were provided.
The tribunal said ensuring compliance with the law should have been foremost in Cooper’s mind yet he chose to prioritise other matters over and above his obligations to provide the requested information.
That was even though he had been in the real estate industry since 1983 and was well aware of the requirements, it noted.
Before the tribunal last year, Cooper explained what happened.
“It was difficult to get the information. I didn’t place importance on this issue. I thought I had dealt with this issue. I just had so many balls in the air.
“Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I was not efficient enough in my administration of this claim. We have had many many claims that had to be dealt with. There were extenuating circumstances of lockdowns, dramas, unprecedented times,” Cooper said last November.
He made a mistake by not realising the importance of the documents being sought, he said.
“It’s sort of embarrassing. Should I have known? Yes, I should have.”
But times were so unusual and he told of “people crying, staff having no income and trying to sort out wage subsidies,” he told the tribunal.
Today, he said he wouldn’t take the matter further.
“While we have considered an appeal, we’ve decided the best course of action is to accept the tribunal’s decision and move forward—focused on building the best real estate business in New Zealand and doing the very best for our people and our customers.
“I apologised at the time for dropping the ball and I’m proud of all the investment in people and processes that we’ve made since to ensure this doesn’t happen again,” Cooper told the Herald.
Anne Gibson has been the Herald‘s property editor for 25 years, written books and covered property extensively here and overseas.