Unlicensed B.C. property manager to pay $100K in penalties

The downtown Vancouver skyline is seen in the distance beyond houses in Burnaby, B.C., on Wednesday, July 12, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

British Columbia’s real estate regulator has ordered a man to pay more than $100,000 in penalties and enforcement costs after he provided rental property management services without provincial authorization.

Wai Lit “Jefferson” Wu and his company Chartell Properties Ltd. managed nearly two dozen rental properties — advertising the properties, collecting rent, returning security deposits and assisting with maintenance and renovations — without any accreditation under the provincial Real Estate Services Act, according to a consent agreement published earlier this month by the B.C. Financial Services Authority.

The regulator found that Wu, who is the owner and sole director of Chartell, has never held a licence to provide real estate services in B.C., and has never met the criteria to be exempted from the legal requirement.

Despite the lack of accreditation, Wu and Chartell provided property management services for 23 rental properties between August 2019 and May 2023, according to the agreed facts of the case.

Those management services extended to negotiating and entering contracts on behalf of the property owners, supervising contractors and managing communications with tenants.

Wu and his company agreed to pay disciplinary penalties of $96,074 for the misconduct. The pair also agreed to pay enforcement costs of $4,932, bringing the total financial sanction amount to $101,006.

Under the terms of the consent agreement, Wu and Chartell waived their right to appeal the regulator’s findings, and they are barred from making any public statements inconsistent with the settlement.

Wu and Chartell fined in 2023

Wu and Chartell have been reprimanded by the regulator before.

In December 2023, Wu agreed to pay a $30,000 fine after he acted as an unregistered mortgage broker by lending his own money to more than a dozen borrowers, according to a consent agreement.

At the time, Wu was unaware that loaning his own funds constituted unregistered mortgage activities in B.C., and he had not been disciplined by the regulator before, according to the 2023 discipline agreement.

Chartell Properties Ltd. was incorporated in B.C. in 1988 and has a registered office on West Broadway in Vancouver.

The B.C. Financial Services Authority requires all real estate professionals to hold a licence from the regulator and renew it every two years.

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