B.C. real estate agent loses licence over failure to report conviction for soliciting sexual services

A real estate sold sign is shown outside a house in Vancouver, Tuesday, Jan.3, 2017. (Jonathan Hayward / The Canadian Press)

A B.C. real estate agent who failed to notify the provincial regulator that he had been charged with – and later that he had been convicted of – soliciting sexual services has had his licence cancelled.

Allan Chun Lung Cheung admitted to professional misconduct and conduct unbecoming of a real estate licensee in a consent order agreement with the B.C. Financial Services Authority, which published the consent order online Wednesday.

According to the document, Cheung was charged with an indictable offence in July 2020. The charge stemmed from events that occurred in November 2018.

The consent order does not specify what the original charge was, but says it was amended on March 12, 2021, to “obtaining for consideration or communicating for the purpose of obtaining for consideration the sexual services of ‘a person.’”

Cheung pleaded guilty to the amended charge the same day, and received a six-month conditional sentence order, according to the document.

B.C.’s Real Estate Services Act and its associated rules require all licensees to notify the BCFSA in writing when they are charged with or convicted of a crime.

Cheung did not inform the BCFSA of his charge or conviction until May 2022, well after he had finished serving his conditional sentence order. He made the disclosure in an online application to renew his trading licence, according to the consent order.

A year later, in May 2023, Cheung provided the BCFSA with a copy of the underlying indictment from July 2020. The regulator issued a notice of discipline hearing against Cheung in March 2024 over the belated disclosures.

In the consent order agreement Cheung admits that his failures to “promptly notify” the BCFSA of the charge against him and of his conviction amount to professional misconduct.

He also admits that he “committed conduct unbecoming a licensee … in that he communicated for the purpose of obtaining sexual services for consideration,” according to the document.

As a consequence for this conduct, Cheung agrees in the consent order to have his real estate trading licence cancelled. He also agrees to pay the BCFSA $3,500 in “enforcement expenses” within four months of signing the agreement.