Realtor facing assault charges
A year after a high-flying West Vancouver luxury realtor was found to have committed multiple counts of professional misconduct, he now faces criminal charges of assault.
Shahin Behroyan, an awardwinning real estate agent who described himself as “ranked in the top five in the world for Re/Max,” made headlines last year when he was disciplined by the Real Estate Council of B.C. for “deceptive dealing ” and demanding a $75,000 bonus from his client.
Now, Behroyan faces two criminal charges, one of aggravated assault and another of assault. The charges were laid earlier this month and Behroyan, who was born in 1987, is to be arraigned in provincial court in Vancouver on Aug. 20, court records show.
Behroyan is alleged to have assaulted a man and a woman in Vancouver on Aug. 5, according to the charge information. The criminal allegations have not been tested in court.
In a brief phone conversation on Thursday, Behroyan said he was unable to talk and asked a Postmedia reporter to email him. Behroyan did not reply to questions sent by email, and his lawyer, Jeff Campbell, declined to comment.
“It’s our intention to respond to the matter in court,” Campbell said.
Behroyan’s website includes several listings for multimillion-dollar properties in West Vancouver. A recent sale listed on his site is a $11.8-million, six-bedroom, ninebathroom West Van mansion. “This home boasts elegance,” the listing says.
While Behroyan’s business has apparently been brisk, he also drew the scrutiny of regulators recently.
Last year, he faced allegations of misconduct in a disciplinary hearing before the Real Estate Council of B.C., focused primarily on the payment of a $75,000 bonus on the 2015 sale of a West Vancouver home, which “more than doubled the total commission from $68,378.57 to $143,378.57.”
Behroyan defended himself and disputed the client’s claims, but the disciplinary committee found Behroyan’s explanations “unconvincing” and, in a disciplinary decision last year, wrote: “We had little difficulty accepting that Mr. Behroyan’s demand for a bonus created a conflict of interest between himself and (the client).”
“We found nothing inherently unbelievable in (the client’s) assertions that Mr. Behroyan had demanded a large sum of money in order to complete the sale of the property,” the committee wrote in last year’s decision. “Such conduct is readily explained by the combination of greed and absence of morality. It is regrettably consistent with human behaviour.”
In April of this year, the council issued its penalty decision for Behroyan, noting they “had little difficulty concluding that Mr. Behroyan’s misconduct fell squarely within the definition of civil fraud.” As a penalty, the council ordered Behroyan to pay costs of almost $59,000 and a $7,500 fine, and ordered his licence suspended for a year.
That suspension was to begin June 1, but Behroyan filed an appeal, the North Shore News reported in June, which put the suspension on hold.
At that time, Behroyan told the News: “I’ve served hundreds of clients successfully and will continue to do so while this case is under appeal.”
The Real Estate Council was unable to provide an update Thursday on Behroyan’s appeal, but the council’s online records list his licence as valid.
Such conduct is readily explained by the combination of greed and absence of morality.