Agent pleads guilty to disgraceful conduct
The former boss of a major New Zealand real estate chain could lose her agent’s licence after admitting to ‘‘disgraceful conduct’’ over the sale of a leaky home – just three weeks before she was due to face a Real Estate Authority (REA) disciplinary hearing.
Corinna Mansell, the former general manager of Remax, had already been part of an out-of-court settlement with Te Awamutu pensioner Margaret ‘‘Jean’’ Warburton over the Hamilton house Mansell sold her for $490,000 in 2015.
The house – Mansell’s former rental property – was discovered to have major weathertightness issues, and has been unoccupied since 2016.
Stuff’s three-part investigation, The Big Leak, revealed how Mansell passed up five opportunities to disclose that the house had been diagnosed as leaky and had undergone major repairs before she bought it.
Warburton wasn’t told of the leaks, but six months after she bought the house, a bathroom renovation revealed it had major problems. While Mansell was part of an out-of-court settlement, she remained under investigation by the REA after a complaint by Warburton.
Warburton had sued Mansell, a builder named Matt Carson, who had previously done work on the house, and a building inspector, Tony Bankier, who had given it a positive inspection report. Mansell effectively counter-sued the two Remax agents who sold the house on her behalf – Andrew Gibson and Cary Ralph – saying she had passed on to them a specialist report warning of the home’s problems. The pair denied ever receiving it.
The case was confidentially settled before it reached the High Court in Hamilton, but records show the ownership of the house, on Edgecumbe St, Whitiora, passed to a company linked to Carson.
It’s understood the house remains unoccupied.
The REA cleared Gibson and Ralph. They were instead due to appear as witnesses at Mansell’s REA hearing. Gibson was the licensee of the Cambridge Remax franchise, but later lost his franchise after disagreements with head office over the case. He said: ‘‘Ms Mansell has caused no end of grief, expense and frustration . . . [and] all through this time she has vehemently declared her innocence.’’
Warburton said: ‘‘The truth is I just feel sick. She has waited all this time to plead guilty. Now I am feeling a bit of an idiot. Should I have pressed on with the court case instead of settling? Losing $250,000 [her legal costs and lost rental income] when I didn’t do anything wrong has not been easy.’’
Warburton said the REA was not ‘‘helpful to the ordinary, everyday Joe Bloggs. Personally, I think they are useless’’.
While the REA cleared Gibson and Ralph, Warburton is still angry that her former agents never faced any action. They were told by one potential buyer the house was rumoured to be leaky, so they commissioned Bankier, who found the house to be sound. They argued they were bound by agent’s rules not to disclose what was, at the time of the sale, unsubstantiated rumour.
Mansell did not return a request for comment. She has never commented publicly on the case. Remax Australia-New Zealand general manager Michael Davoren didn’t return a call for comment.
While she lost her role as Remax’s New Zealand general manager, she remains listed on the company’s website as the general manager of their franchise at Flat Bush, in East Auckland.
The REA confirmed Mansell had been due to face a three-day misconduct hearing in Hamilton from August 19 to 21.
Instead, REA investigator Chris Gooch advised witnesses and Warburton that Mansell had now lodged a guilty plea and would instead be sentenced on August 19 at a penalty hearing.
Disgraceful conduct is the highest level of misconduct by a real estate agent under the 2012 REA Act.
The REA said the maximum penalties for disgraceful conduct included a fine of up to $15,000, cancellation or suspension of licence, compensation of up to $100,000 and refunding commission. The minimum penalties are a censure/reprimand and an order to apologise.