This Real Estate Broker Sells a Property to His Wife and Earns a Commission for Doing It

A real estate broker, owner of a RE/MAX agency in Vaudreuil-Dorion, has just been fined, almost ten years after the events, for having sold a property to his partner and having pushed the he has the audacity to charge his selling client a commission to do this.

These facts are reported in a decision which was rendered against the broker Jacques Laplante, on November 4, by the disciplinary committee of the Organisme d’autoréglementation du courtageimmobilier du Québec (OACIQ). The accused admitted the facts and entered a guilty plea.

The alleged facts date back almost ten years. In March 2015, a client entrusted the sale of his Salaberry-de-Valleyfield property and related activities to the RE/MAX Royal Jordan JL agency, represented by Jacques Laplante and his daughter, broker Marie-Lynn André .

The parties agree on a marketing price of $399,000 and a fee of 6%, to be shared equally between the buyer’s broker, if applicable.

Four months later, on July 16, 2015, a promise to purchase [qui sera acceptée deux jours plus tard] is written by the broker André for a sum of $280,000, or 30% below the price agreed at the start.

At the same time, the broker signed a “disclosure notice”, in which she revealed that her client happened to be not only her mother, but also the common-law partner (since 1991) and wife of Mr. Laplante since 2006.

$16,800 in commissions

The problem is that despite the disclosure of this conflict of interest, RE/MAX Royal Jordan JL enters the transaction in its records and allocates remuneration of 6% of the sale price to the agency and to Jacques Laplante as both broker of the seller, but also of the buyer, his wife.

Before taxes, the total commission that will be paid to him is $16,800. No commission would, moreover, have been paid to his daughter and colleague [Marie-Lynn André]who was, according to Mr. Laplante, considered an employee with a “fixed salary with a possible bonus at the end of the year”.

The sequence of events “clearly demonstrates that [Jacques Laplante] committed reprehensible actions which are at the heart of the profession and which are likely to cause harm to the public and the profession,” writes the disciplinary committee.

The statement of facts “unequivocally demonstrates the transgression […] of section 23 of the Regulation respecting the conditions for carrying out a brokerage operation, the ethics of brokers and advertising”, of the Real Estate Brokerage Act of Quebec.

After admitting the facts, Jacques Laplante was sentenced to pay a fine of $6,000 and he will have to follow a three-hour training course entitled “Conflicts of interest and dual representation: obligation of the broker to act in accordance with full transparency”, provided by the OACIQ. Failing this, Jacques Laplante would see his right to carry out professional real estate brokerage activities suspended.

►Article 23 of the regulation: “The license holder cannot claim or receive remuneration when he […] acquires an interest in an immovable for himself, for a company or for a legal person of which he has control or when his spouse, with whom he is married or in a civil union or with whom he lives in a common-law relationship, or a person legal entity or a company controlled by the latter becomes a tenant or acquires an interest in the building.”