Kelowna realtor fined $6,000 for inadvertent mistake

A Kelowna realtor, who forgot to make sure a $50,000 deposit had been paid, has been fined $6,000 even though his mistake didn’t affect the sale of the house.

According to a May 7 BC Financial Services Authority decision, Kelowna realtor Andrew James Irvine was representing the buyers in a $965,000 property purchase last July when the mistake happened.

After agreeing to buy the property, the unnamed buyers gave the realtor a bank draft for $50,000, which needed to be paid within 48 hours of the subjects being removed.

However, the bank draft sat in his office and didn’t make it into the brokerage’s trust account.

The mistake was only picked up when a lawyer called about the real estate sale weeks later.

Irvine promptly rectified his mistake, and the sale went through as planned.

READ MORE: New short-term rental bylaw means some in Kamloops may not be available

The realtor’s regulator then issued Irvine with a $6,000 fine.

The case highlights the strict rules – and fines – realtors face for making mistakes, even if no harm is done.

Irvine appealed the fine, saying he’d entrusted the deposit to his assistant, who had gone to work remotely from Saskatchewan. He said he’d since fired her because her work was getting “sloppy.”

In his defence, the realtor said he’d immediately fixed the mistake and told his brokerage what had happened.

In arguing against paying the fine, he highlighted the sale completed as normal and he’d been transparent with the regulator during its investigation.

He said he now had systems in place to make sure this same issue couldn’t happen again.

READ MORE: Central Okanagan housing sales in April lowest in 12 years

However, for the BC Financial Services Authority, that wasn’t good enough.

“I find that the fact that that risk did not crystallize into harm in this case is substantially a matter of luck,” the regulator said in the decision. “Mr. Irvine inadvertently breached an important record keeping obligation which undermined protections in place to prevent a further breach of a crucial regulatory duty to deliver deposit funds.”

The Financial Services Authority said that he should have had systems in place to make sure the mistake didn’t happen in the first place.

While the regulator accepted that the issue was unintentional, quickly fixed and no harm was done, it stuck to its guns and issued the $6,000 fine.