A former Realtor has been ordered to pay $627,000 in penalties more than a decade after he first deceived his clients in a scheme to increase his commissions. The B.C. Financial Services Authority ordered Andre Zubko to pay the total—$320,000 in discipline penalties and $307,000 in enforcement expenses—in a sanctions decision issued late last month and published online Friday. The penalties stem from eight transactions that occurred in 2016 and 2017. According to a previous decision on liability, Zubko worked with two other Realtors to “circumvent the commission provisions” of agreements he had made with clients looking to sell their homes. Zubko also made “false or misleading statements” to BCFSA investigators looking into his case, and admitted to deleting emails related to the transactions that were under investigation. In addition to imposing financial penalties, the sanctions decision cancelled the licences of both Zubko and his personal real estate corporation. These cancellations, the document notes, are “notional,” as Zubko has not been a licensed real estate agent since 2017. The commission scheme The BCFSA decisions explain that Zubko was working for One Percent Realty in Squamish at the time of the eight transactions. The brokerage operated by charging a flat commission fee and generally attracted clients who were looking to sell their properties at a lower transaction cost. “Mr. Zubko observed, since he began working at One Percent Realty, that licensees acting for buyers were at times reluctant to show properties listed by One Percent Realty due to the fact that the buyer agents would also receive a reduced commission,” the liability decision explains. “Mr. Zubko further observed that on most offers made on his One Percent Realty listings by other brokerages, the buyer agents would seek to include a term that required the seller to pay an increased commission to the buyer’s agent.” Based on these observations, according to the decision, Zubko hatched a plan. He would refer buyers who were unrepresented to one of two other licensees—a high school friend and his wife’s cousin—who would require an increased buyer’s agent commission when making an offer. When offers were accepted, those other licensees would give the majority of the increased buyer’s commissions to Zubko. This “commission scheme” was executed for all eight of the transactions, according to the decisions. Two of the transactions also saw a second strategy—referred to in the sanctions decision as the “assignment scheme”—in which Zubko had individuals who were close with him, personally, make offers on properties he was listing, with the intention of assigning those contracts of purchase and sale to other buyers for a higher price. “In sum, Mr. Zubko sought to allow his close personal acquaintances to turn a profit on the assignment of contracts of purchase and sale, at the expense of Mr. Zubko’s clients,” reads the liability decision. Misconduct and sanctions In the liability decision, which was issued back in July 2024, BCFSA hearing officer Andrew Pendray concluded that Zubko had engaged in the commission scheme to obtain money through “illegal means,” which meets the definition of deceptive dealing under B.C.’s Real Estate Services Act. The assignment scheme was also deceptive dealing, according to Pendray. In addition to these instances of misconduct, the hearing officer concluded that Zubko had failed or refused to co-operate with the investigation, noting that Zubko had conspired with one of his fellow licensees to align the stories they wanted to tell to the regulator. All of this also constituted conduct unbecoming of a licensee, according to the sanctions decision. That document describes Zubko’s misconduct as “severe,” particularly with regard to the commission and assignment schemes. “In the assignment transactions, Mr. Zubko purposefully arranged transactions which would cause his clients to obtain less money from the sale of their property than Mr. Zubko in fact was fully aware they could earn,” the sanctions decision reads. “More to the point, it was not merely a situation in which Mr. Zubko was aware that his clients were leaving money on the table, Mr. Zubko was in fact actively arranging for his family and friends to earn that additional money, at the expense of his clients.” Four of the eight transactions for which Zubko was penalized occurred before changes to the law that increased the maximum penalty for misconduct from $10,000 to $250,000. For this reason, Pendray imposed a $10,000 discipline penalty for those four transactions. The remaining four transactions resulted in penalties of $50,000, $55,000, $55,000 and $115,000, respectively. The hearing officer also ordered a further $35,000 penalty “to ensure that Mr. Zubko has not retained any of the profits he initially obtained from the transactions in question.” These amounts add up to $320,000 in total discipline penalties. The BCFSA sought, and Pendray granted, a further $307,000 in enforcement expenses, reflecting a portion of the cost of the regulator’s investigation. Zubko and his personal real estate corporation are jointly liable for the $627,000 total. They have 60 days from the date of the sanctions decision to pay the penalties. They also have 30 days to appeal Pendray’s orders to the B.C. Financial Services Tribunal, should they choose to do so.
