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CTV News
a day ago
- Business
- CTV News
B.C. regulator issues alert about alleged unlicensed property manager
B.C.'s real estate industry regulator is asking property owners in and around the province's capital for assistance in an ongoing investigation into alleged unlicensed activity by a local woman and her company. Radoslava Stoycheva and her company Victoria Royal Vacations Inc. have made an undertaking to the B.C. Financial Services Authority to immediately cease all unlicensed real estate activity, the regulator said in a consumer alert issued Tuesday. 'Rental property owners who have used Stoycheva's or VRV's services, or who have been approached by either, can contact BCFSA and share information of your interactions,' the alert reads, directing those with information to email realestate@ or use the complaints portal on the regulator's website. The alert does not elaborate on the type of real estate services Stoycheva and VRV were allegedly providing, though it does advise rental property owners who are using or considering hiring a rental property manager to verify that the person in question holds a BCFSA licence. If Stoycheva breaches her undertaking, she could personally face administrative penalties of up to $100,000 and fines of up to $250,000. Her company could be fined up to $500,000. 'BCFSA seeks the assistance of the public to understand the scope of activity that may have taken place prior to BCFSA accepting this undertaking from Radoslava Stoycheva and her company,' the alert reads. Stoycheva is the sole director of VRV, according to the BCFSA.
CTV News
25-06-2025
- Business
- CTV News
Vancouver man fined $80K for unlicensed property management
A Vancouver man and his company have been ordered to pay a total of $80,000 to B.C.'s real estate regulator after admitting to providing property management services without a licence for more than eight years. Peter Ho Chiu Chu and 168 Rock Solid Homes Ltd. admitted their unlicensed operation and agreed to the penalty in a consent order agreement with the B.C. Financial Services Authority, which was published online Monday. According to the document, Chu told BCFSA staff that – until they contacted him to investigate his conduct – he was unaware that property managers were required to be licensed in B.C. He has since applied for licensure, but the consent order notes that his application was placed on hold while the regulator investigated the case. The Office of the Superintendent of Real Estate, a precursor to the BCFSA, began its investigation after receiving a complaint about Chu and Rock Solid in August 2019, according to the document. The investigation soon identified 'at least' 31 properties – located in Vancouver, Richmond, Delta, Burnaby and West Vancouver – that Rock Solid had managed between 2012 and 2020. According to the consent order, Rock Solid offered services including advertising properties for rent, screening prospective tenants, signing and managing tenancy agreements, collecting security deposits and rents, making and supervising repairs, and representing owners at Residential Tenancy Branch hearings, among other things. For these services, the company charged 8.333 per cent of rental income, plus GST on maintenance fees and $100 per RTB appearance. Chu was the sole director of Rock Solid, according to the consent order. In May 2020, he provided an undertaking to the OSRE promising to cease providing real estate services unless he held a valid licence. However, further investigation showed that Chu continued to provide property management services for free, 'in anticipation of future remuneration once he became licensed,' according to the document. The consent order details more back-and-forth between the parties, culminating with the OSRE issuing an 'order in urgent circumstances' directing Chu and Rock Solid to stop all property management services. Chu told staff he complied with this cease order. 'Mr. Chu was co-operative throughout the investigation by providing documents in his possession or control and attending an interview with investigative staff as requested,' the consent order reads. 'Mr. Chu's understanding of the scope of the undertaking is that it prohibited the provision of rental property management services for or in expectation of remuneration, and that provision of such services for free was not prohibited.' The document notes that Chu has no prior discipline history with the BCFSA or its predecessor organizations. In the consent order, Chu admitted to his unlicensed property management and agreed to pay a $75,000 administrative penalty, plus $5,000 in investigation costs. It's the second penalty the BCFSA has levied against Chu's household in as many months. In May, Chu's wife Rena Liang and her Personal Real Estate Corporation agreed to pay the regulator $50,000 for professional misconduct. Liang's misconduct included directing the tenant of a West Vancouver property to provide rental payments to Chu, despite knowing that he was not licensed, as well as using her PREC to make a loan to her husband that was registered as a mortgage against their Vancouver home. The BCFSA issued a news release about the couple's conduct and penalties on Tuesday. 'These actions show a disregard for consumers who deserve to be represented by licensed real estate professionals,' said Jon Vandall, the BCFSA's senior vice-president of compliance and enforcement, in the release. 'When someone offers unlicensed services, they are implying or claiming they are something they are not, and this leads to consumer risk. Ignorance of (B.C.'s Real Estate Services Act) is no excuse. BCFSA is here to inform and protect consumers and ensure only licensed operators provide real estate services in B.C."
CTV News
20-06-2025
- Business
- CTV News
B.C. Realtor's licence cancelled over ‘deceptive and underhanded' conduct
Real estate sale signage is shown on a street in Oakville, Ont., west of Toronto, on Thursday, Nov.7, 2024. (Richard Buchan / The Canadian Press) A B.C. Realtor who lost a court case against a former client earlier this year has now had his licence cancelled by the provincial real estate regulator. Alan Hu and his Personal Real Estate Corporation recently entered a consent order agreement with the B.C. Financial Services Authority, in which they agreed to pay a $120,000 fine and have their licences cancelled. The penalties stem from the same incident that led to a court decision against Hu in January, in which B.C. Supreme Court Justice Amy D. Francis found Hu had 'intentionally undermined' his client Pei Hua Zhong by purchasing for himself the Surrey home that Zhong had made an offer to buy. Francis' decision in the case describes Hu's conduct as 'deceptive and underhanded' – a description that is repeated in the consent order document published on the BCFSA website Friday. What happened The court case revolved around Zhong's attempts to purchase a property on 174 Street near 20 Avenue in Surrey. The one-acre parcel had an assessed value of just over $3 million for 2025, according to BC Assessment. 174 Street property in South Surrey The property at the centre of the lawsuit is seen in this 2011 photo from BC Assessment. ( Zhong met Hu in November 2017 and hired the Realtor to facilitate both the sale of his home on Poplar Drive and the purchase of a new home, according to the court decision. Through Hu, Zhong made two offers to purchase the 174 Street property. The first, for $2.1 million, was accepted, but expired when Zhong was unable to sell his home in time to raise the necessary funds for the down payment. While the first offer was expiring in late December 2017, Hu was in Las Vegas with his wife and another couple – Lingxia Tao and her husband Zhi Chen. According to the decision, what exactly was discussed between the parties in Las Vegas was disputed during the court proceedings, but the end result was that Tao made an offer on the 174 Street property for slightly less than $2.1 million, which was accepted, while Zhong made a new offer of $2.05 million, which was rejected. Two weeks later, Tao assigned her contract to purchase the property to Hu, who ultimately completed the transaction. Hu later sold the property in September 2021 for $3.35 million – a profit of more than $1.2 million over what he had paid when he assumed Tao's contract less than four years earlier. Francis ruled in Zhong's favour, ordering Hu to 'disgorge' his portion of the profits, a number that remained unspecified in the court decision because of ongoing litigation between Hu and Tao over their purported agreement to invest in real estate together. Regulator-imposed consequences The BCFSA consent order details these same circumstances, albeit with the names of the other parties and the address of the property redacted. According to the document, Hu's client (Zhong) learned that Hu was the owner of the property when he performed a title search in September 2021. Zhong filed his civil lawsuit in January 2022. In April of that year, he submitted a complaint to the BCFSA, the consent order indicates. The document notes that Hu made false statements to BCFSA investigators about his agreement with Tao and falsely claimed that he had offered Zhong the opportunity to take the assignment of the contract to buy the 174 Street property. He later admitted during the trial that he had never told Zhong about the assignment. Hu also failed to notify the BCFSA when the B.C. Supreme Court judgment against him was issued earlier this year, according to the consent order. In the agreement, Hu admits to a lengthy list of conduct unbecoming of a licensee and professional misconduct, including: Failing to act honestly in providing real estate services Failing to disclose 'all known material information' to a client Failing to maintain the client's confidentiality Failing to act in the best interests of the client Failing to take reasonable steps to avoid a conflict of interest Failing to promptly and fully disclose a conflict of interest to a client Providing trading services outside of the brokerage with which he and his PREC were licensed Collecting funds in relation to the purchase of a property without promptly remitting the money to his brokerage Failing to keep the brokerage's managing broker informed of the assignment contract Failing to promptly notify the BCFSA of the court judgment Failing or refusing to co-operate with an investigation And making false or misleading statements in relation to an investigation Hu and his company admitted this misconduct and agreed to the cancellation of their licences. They are jointly required to pay the $120,000 fine within six months of signing the consent order agreement. 'Real estate licensees have an enshrined duty to act in the best interests of their client, and Hu's actions ran wholly contrary to that duty,' said Jon Vandall, the BCFSA's senior vice-president of compliance and enforcement, in a news release issued Friday. 'Hu undermined his own client for personal gain and demonstrated a clear disregard for the established ethical expectations for licensees. The significant penalty issued to Hu, including the outright cancellation of his real estate licence, reflects the severity of Hu's actions.'
CBC
13-06-2025
- CBC
Bullet holes and police raids: Former real estate agent investigated for allegedly subletting to criminals
A former Lower Mainland real estate agent is under investigation by B.C.'s real estate regulator after his name allegedly turned up last year as the 'tenant' for multiple properties linked to a major Vancouver Police Department (VPD) gang investigation. According to documents obtained by CBC News, VPD investigators contacted the B.C. Financial Services Authority (BCFSA) when Qun (Michael) Li's name surfaced during raids on Vancouver and Burnaby suites linked to a Quebec-based criminal group trying to establish a foothold in Vancouver. A search warrant claims the Burnaby resident — who also works as a driving coach — was also listed as the tenant on record in a separate RCMP investigation related to a suite where the actual occupant allegedly fired a stray bullet fired through a neighbour's wall. And at least five homeowners have turned to the courts to evict Li from their properties in the past year — including two landlords who complained their suites were rented without their knowledge to sex workers. "I feel stressed every time I think about his issues," says Richard Zhou, an apartment owner who got a B.C. Supreme Court order to remove Li's possessions from his Burnaby condo last year after taking him to the Residential Tenancy Branch (RTB). "I'm helpless. The police cannot help me. The strata manager cannot help me. I think the landlord in Canada is on the weak side. We don't have too much power to kick the tenants out," said Zhou. 'A possible co-opted realtor' Li told CBC News in a brief phone call he was "not interested" in commenting on the allegations spelled out in a warrant to search his phone obtained in March. The document says the 45-year-old — who was first licensed in July 2015 — is suspected of breaching B.C.'s Real Estate Services Act by bringing the real estate industry into disrepute and failing to report his rental management property services. He has not been charged with any criminal offences or any offences under the Real Estate Services Act. The BCFSA's investigation began with an email from the VPD's organized crime section last August. "I have been made aware of a possible co-opted realtor whose name has popped up in a large drug trafficking investigation involving an organized gang originating out of Quebec but has quickly established themselves here in the Lower Mainland," the email said. The court documents say police provided two further emails "which identified six specific properties related to either VPD or Burnaby Royal Canadian Mounted Police related drug investigations." "Qun Li was listed as the tenant on record at each of the six properties at the time of the police search warrant executions for the investigations." Vancouver police publicized raids last year on the rental properties in Burnaby and Vancouver as part of an investigation into Zone 43 — a Quebec-based gang accused of drug trafficking in the Downtown Eastside. Five men were arrested after a 14-month investigation and seizures yielding $150,000 cash, two handguns and 24 kilograms of fentanyl, cocaine and methamphetamine. The BCFSA search warrant claims "a well known organized crime figure and drug trafficker was living" in one of the suites. Another was allegedly being used to stash drugs. The court documents claim the actual owners of the suites either believed Li would be living in their units or that he would act as a real estate agent to rent them out. The owner of a property in Burnaby where VPD allegedly found firearms, currency and evidence of drug trafficking claimed Li "lied to him about living with his cousin" after responding to an advertisement on a Chinese website. The search warrant says five men ended up living in the unit instead. A silver bullet fragment 'underneath his bed' The subject of a Burnaby RCMP file linked to another of Li's rentals was in provincial court in Vancouver this week, making an appearance from his new home: North Fraser Pretrial Centre. Jordy Engelo faces charges — including careless use or storage of a firearm — in connection with an RCMP investigation into a report of suspicious circumstances, made by the tenant of a neighbouring suite who noticed bullet holes in his unit's walls. CBC News has obtained a copy of a separate search warrant connected with that investigation, which claims the neighbour "woke up, went to the living room and located a hole in the wall." "Upon further investigation [the neighbour] discovered that the keyboard of his computer had some impact damage (4 keys), and the bedroom wall had been penetrated through," the search warrant says. "[He] inspected the bedroom and later located a silver bullet fragment, on the floor, underneath his bed." Police detained Engelo, who was allegedly found in the company of a 17-year-old female, who was released into the custody of her legal guardian. Engelo's bail hearing is scheduled for next week. Real estate agent Weny Wu told CBC News she rented the suite after seeing Li's business card. "He signed an agreement and he said he wanted to move in with his nephew, who's coming to Vancouver," Wu said. "Later, when something happened — the police incident happened to this unit — we finally realized that he did not actually live there by himself. He let it to other people." 'I decided to sell' Apart from the files involving police activity, five separate homeowners have taken Li to the RTB in the past year — resulting in decisions against him that landlords have enforced through B.C. Supreme Court orders. Like many of the people who rented to Li, Zhou claimed he advertised his suite on a Chinese language social media site. He said he did not give Li permission to rent the unit to someone else. The BCFSA's search warrant says Zhou told investigators Li "immediately sublet the suite to a prostitute for the first month." Another of the homeowners who went to the courts, Pedro Chie, told CBC News a sex worker also appeared to be entertaining clients out of the Whalley condo Li rented from him in Surrey, B.C. Chie said he suspected as much after being called multiple times to fix a washing machine that wasn't actually broken and finding evidence a female smoker was living in his suite — not the former real estate agent. According to an RTB decision, Li fought Chie, arguing that he "told the Landlord at the start of the agreement that they would have friends staying in the rental unit." But the RTB sided with Chie after Li admitted he was "living elsewhere on a periodic basis" — leading to the conclusion the unit was being sublet contrary to the rental agreement. "I decided to sell the apartment," Chie says. "All is messy. I have to pay money to clean up everything." Zhou says the whole experience has also cost him dearly both emotionally and financially — leaving him with $2,400 worth of fines levied by the strata after a constant string of complaints. He says he now prefers to rent to non-Canadians, because "they want to behave better." 'I am sorry' An internet search of Li's phone number turns up old advertisements for apartment rentals on Chinese websites and a posting on a John Howard Society affordable housing list from 2016 for a shared space. According to the BCFSA search warrant, Li surrendered his real estate licence within days of being contacted by the regulator in early March. "I am sorry I did not [report] my rental apartments to my manager, as the apartment is under my personal name," Li allegedly wrote in an email to the BCFSA's investigator. "I am willing to return and suspend my realtor licence to BCFSA from today. I suffered lots of stress recently and in the last few years, because some people I subleased did not pay rent or caused damages or other problem." The BCFSA confirmed in an email that its investigation into Li's activities is still ongoing. The regulator says that under the terms of B.C.'s Real Estate Services Act, former licensees can still be sanctioned for activities that took place while they were in good standing. The search warrant also includes a copy of Li's apology to his managing broker, who wrote a statement explaining that the company's real estate agents work on "an independent contractor basis."
CTV News
03-06-2025
- Business
- CTV News
B.C. woman used Personal Real Estate Corporation to make $500K loan to spouse, violating rules
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.
