Friends’ six-year commission battle
An Auckland real estate agent has failed in his second appeal against an unsatisfactory conduct finding made against him.
In June, the Real Estate Agents Disciplinary Tribunal found Akhil Chaudhary guilty of unsatisfactory conduct relating to the sale of a friend’s property.
The issue at the heart of this six-year battle was whether Chaudhary had made an agreement with his friend, Subarmani Rajan, to charge a discounted sales commission and whether Chaudhary then lied to cover up reneging on the deal.
The long-running case began with the sale of a Manukau property in 2013.
In November 2012, Chaudhary was approached by Rajan to sell his property through Sega Realty, where Chaudhary worked at the time.
In February 2013, a colleague of Rajan told him she would like to buy the house. The two negotiated a price and then went to Chaudhary to formalise the process.
Chaudhary promised to pocket just 50 per cent of the sales commission as his friend had brought the buyer to him. However on settlement day, Rajan realised the full commission of $8890 had been taken from the sale. When confronted about this discrepancy Chaudhary assured Rajan that he would get 50 per cent of the commission back, but this never happened.
In 2016 Rajan made a formal complaint to the Real Estate Authority. The authority facilitated mediation between the two men and in August of that year Chaudhary agreed to pay $4000 as promised. By November 2016 the money had not been paid and the issue was referred to the Real Estate Authority Complaints Assessment Committee.
While Chaudhary did eventually pay the money back in instalments, the committee issued a decision against him in June 2017. The committee found Chaudhary’s actions fell short of the standard that a reasonable member of the public was entitled to expect from a reasonably competent licensee, and constituted unsatisfactory conduct.
Chaudhary was found to have lied to his supervisor, and the authority investigator, regarding the agreement he had made with Rajan. The committee censured the real estate agent and fined him $2000.
Chaudhary appealed the decision, arguing the committee had erred in relying on the mediation agreement to find unsatisfactory conduct as it was outside the scope of his work as a real estate agent. The tribunal agreed and sent the case back to the complaints committee. In its second decision, issued in September 2018, the committee again made a finding of unsatisfactory conduct against Chaudhary for lying about the 50 per cent commission. It dismissed Rajan’s complaint regarding the issues with mediated settlement. The agent was censured and the fine reduced to $1000.
But Chaudhary appealed again on the basis there was no oral or written agreement to reduce the commission by 50 per cent. After re-hearing the evidence, the tribunal found that the committee had been right in its finding of unsatisfactory conduct against Chaudhary. However, as the agent had paid $4400, the fine was quashed. He was censured again and ordered to undertake training in real estate ethics.
The long-running case began with the sale of a Manukau property in 2013.