B.C. real estate agent agrees to $55K in penalties for misconduct

Houses are shown in Vancouver on Friday, Aug. 19, 2022. (Darryl Dyck / The Canadian Press)

A B.C. real estate agent has agreed to pay more than $50,000 to a provincial regulator after admitting to two separate instances of misconduct involving her common-law spouse.

Rui Liang, also known as Rena Liang, entered a consent order agreement with the B.C. Financial Services Authority over the misconduct last month. The document was published online last week.

In it, Liang and her Personal Real Estate Corporation agree to pay the BCFSA a $50,000 administrative penalty and $5,000 in enforcement expenses.

According to the consent order, a $5-million mortgage was registered against a Vancouver property in favour of Liang’s company – referred to throughout the decision as “RL PREC” – in February 2019.

The mortgage amount was mistakenly registered an order of magnitude higher than it was intended to be, the document indicates, describing it as a “spousal loan” of $500,000 to Liang’s common-law spouse Peter Ho Chiu Chu.

The loan was related to a house the couple was building, and Chu was the registered owner of the property, according to the consent order.

Under B.C.’s Real Estate Services Act and its associated regulations, Personal Real Estate Corporations are not allowed to “conduct any business other than the provision of real estate services and ancillary services directly associated with the provision of real estate services,” the consent order reads.

By allowing a mortgage to be registered in favour of RL PREC, Liang and her corporation violated this rule.

“In April 2022, the mortgage was transferred from RL PREC to Ms. Liang personally and the amount of the mortgage was amended to $500,000,” the consent order reads.

The other misconduct Liang and RL PREC admitted to in the document also stemmed from their relationship to Chu.

According to the consent order, Chu has been the owner of a company called “168 Rock Solid Homes” since it was incorporated in 2008.

The company began providing rental property management services “in or around 2012,” despite not being licensed to do so, the document indicates.

“Ms. Liang knew that neither Mr. Chu nor Rock Solid Homes was licensed to provide rental property management services, nor exempt from the requirement to be licensed,” the consent order reads.

Despite this knowledge, Liang directed the successful applicant for a rental home in West Vancouver to get in touch with Chu, who the property owner had hired to manage the property, according to the consent order.

This constituted facilitating or supporting unlicensed property management, which is “conduct unbecoming” under the Real Estate Services Act, Liang admitted in the document.

In addition to the $55,000 in penalties she and RL PREC agreed to pay in the consent order, Liang also agreed to complete the Real Estate Trading Services Remedial Education Course at UBC’s Sauder School of Business, according to the consent order.

Liang and her corporation have no previous discipline history with the BCFSA, the document notes.