The High Court has overturned a Real Estate Agents Disciplinary Tribunal decision and cancelled the saleperson's licence of an agent convicted of tax fraud.
The decision arose after a a real estate agent (both the agent and the company she worked for have permanent name suppression) was convicted of abetting a company to apply PAYE deductions for a purpose other than payment to Inland Revenue, plus five charges of abetting the same company to fail to file GST returns.
According to the High Court Judgment, the offending occurred between October 2013 and October 2015 and involved $233,866 in unpaid tax.
The Judgment said that over the same period the agent spent approximately $278,000 on online gambling.
In August 2016 she was sentenced to five months community detention and 200 hours community work and ordered to pay reparations of $233,866.
In August 2016 the agent applied to the Real Estate Agents Authority (the Authority) to renew her saleperson's licence, but that was declined on the basis that she was not a fit and proper person to hold a licence.
The agent then applied to the Real Estate Agents Disciplinary Tribunal (the Tribunal) for a review of that decision.
The Tribunal decided in the agent's favour and reinstated her salesperson's licence, but the Authority then appealed that decision to the High Court.
In a decision released yesterday (28 November) the High Court sided with the Authority, overturned the Tribunal's decision and reinstated the Authority's decision to cancel the agent's licence.
The Judgment also noted that the Authority would normally be entitled to costs, but if no agreement on this could be reached with the other parties, the Authority should apply to the High Court for an order on costs.
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32 Comments
Quite right! What happened to the Good Ol' Days when the convicted were chained to a post on the village green with their crimes and names on a placard around their necks....
Have to say, I agree with the thrust of the comments above.
I feel extremely disappointed with the Real Estate Agents Disciplinary Tribunal - shame on it.
This sort of thing gets industry self-regulation a very bad reputation. And that's a great pity.
Nobody should think of real estate agency as being a "profession". It's no more than an industry of salespeople - and seems to attract a disproportionately high number of persons with serious character defects.
TTP
Actually I haven't rubbished people's profession at all apart from pointing out when they have a motivation to keep property prices inflated, such as RE"s and related property industries. Which you also mentioned that your part of the property industry aren't you Yivl.
I find the rubbishing of other people's profession highly objectionable. I actually find it akin to bullying. At least they are doing something to earn a buck. There are good and bad people in all professions. How presumptuous to assume one's occupation is superior to someone else's. Can we not keep our comments to issues and leave the personal attacks out
Not to worry, Yvil,
Despite he/she hanging around here for quite a while now, CJ099 hasn't yet cottoned on to the fact that this blog was set up so that contributors could remain anonymous - and have their privacy safeguarded.
And that's a good thing, given that there are dark and dubious individuals (such as CJ099) in our midst.
TTP
Interesting.
So the Master Builders Association is actually run by government?
The Plumbers association, too?
What about the Amercian Bar Association?
Another front for the pesky respective government?
Silly CJ for thinking that they regulate the industry.
I'm so glad we have you to clear these things up for us, TTP.
LOL, I'm actually referring to technology companies working with government bodies such as NZ Justice, who are introducing more regulations to prevent corruption in property transactions, that also includes Real Estate Agents. Go check out their website.
Won't be long until RE's are replaced by phone apps, they certainly need to be replaced by technology judging by the levels of corruption.
This is the most disappointing thread of comments that I have seen on this site.
More than happy to see any opinions and viewpoints on issues, but personal attacks or innuendo have no place.
The threads above undermine the credibility of this site and I question as to why interest.co.nz allow this.
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