Pair told to cease providing rogue real estate services
Order linked to Chinese-language website with B.C. property info
Regulators have frozen the bank account of a B.C. company and ordered two of its operators to immediately cease providing unlicensed real estate services, following the earlier suspension of two licensed B.C. realtors in related disciplinary orders.
B.C.’s Office of the Superintendent of Real Estate has ordered Shangren Vancouver Settlement Service Ltd. and its operators Feng “Fanny” Ni and Xiao Wen “Wendy” Ye to immediately cease providing unlicensed real estate services in B.C., according to a joint statement Thursday from the Financial Institutions Commission and the Real Estate Council of B.C. None of them have ever been licensed to provide real estate services in B.C.
The cease-and-desist order and the bank account freeze were issued this week under “urgent circumstance” in the public interest, subject to further investigation and a possible hearing, said Ministry of Finance spokesman Jamie Edwardson.
Thursday’s statement also mentioned a related disciplinary order from late last month, in which licensed realtor Xin “Selena” Li was suspended for seven months and ordered to pay a $10,000 penalty for “encouraging unlicensed activity by providing real estate services and paying referral fees to an unlicensed entity.”
In another related disciplinary order from July, B.C. realtor Xiao Ming “Alban” Wang was suspended for a year and ordered to pay a $10,000 penalty for facilitating unlicensed real estate services.
The orders were all issued in con- nection with unlicensed services provided to homebuyers facilitated through a Chinese-language real estate website called Vanfun.com. Vanfun features information about B.C. properties, translated into Chinese, from the Multiple Listing Service site used by real estate agents, revealed before buyers can see the listings in English on the MLS public site, as The Vancouver Sun reported in April.
The cease order, dated Tuesday and signed by B.C.’s Acting Superintendent of Real Estate, Chris Carter, says: “Ni and Shangren have wilfully and consistently placed the public at risk by continuing to provide unlicensed real estate activities.”
Ni’s conduct was described in the order as “particularly egregious” because she had previously been informed by regulators about the provision of unlicensed real estate services in connection with an earlier company called Sunway Investment.
Sunway, of which Ni was a director, was the focus of a 2013 investigation based on complaints received by the public, according to this week’s cease order. Ni told investigators she had shut down Sunway and started a new company called Shangren, which she assured staff would not provide real estate services, the order said.
“It is clear that both Ni and Shangren continued to provide real estate services despite this previous knowledge,” Carter’s order said. “Sunway may have dissolved as a company, but it appears that Shangren simply stepped into its shoes.”
The $10,000 penalties imposed on Wang and Li represent the current maximum penalty for individuals under the Real Estate Services Act.
Sunway may have dissolved as a company, but it appears that Shangren simply stepped into its shoes.