B.C. real estate agent suspended 6 months for forging homeowners' signatures

A for sale sign is seen outside a home in East Vancouver on Saturday, Sept. 16, 2023. (CTV)

A B.C. real estate agent who admitted to forging the signatures of two homeowners as part of a rezoning application in 2015 has agreed to a six-month suspension of his licence and financial penalties equal to the maximum that was allowed at the time.

Ramandeep Singh Kooner and his personal real estate corporation admitted the misconduct and agreed to the sanctions in a consent order with the B.C. Financial Services Authority, which was signed in late July and published online Friday. 

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The document details the circumstances that led to Kooner's acts of forgery, beginning with a land assembly transaction organized by a colleague.

The colleague, who is not named in the consent order, "came across owners of three properties in Richmond, B.C., who wished to sell the three properties together" for redevelopment, according to the document.

Kooner's colleague found a buyer and prepared contracts of purchase and sale for each of the three properties. The contracts were signed on Aug. 21, 2015, and included a provision that the sales were contingent upon a land assembly approval from the City of Richmond.

The consent order indicates that the same day the contracts were signed, they were "assigned" to three other individuals – all "childhood friends" of Kooner, who assisted with the assignments.

About a month later, according to the document, Kooner presented signed "letters of authorization" to the city, purporting to be from the owners of the three properties. The letters gave Kooner and one of the assignees, who is not named in the consent order, the power to act as the homeowners' representative in the rezoning process.

"On or about Sept. 24, 2015, two of the property owners, (Owner 1) and (Owner 2), attended at the City of Richmond to inquire about the risk of signing the letters of authorization for the rezoning and subdivision process of their properties," the consent order reads.

"They were informed by the City of Richmond staff that their letters of authorization had already been signed and submitted allowing R Kooner and (Individual 1) to be their representatives."

The owners told the city they had not signed the documents and had not consented to Kooner signing on their behalf.

According to the consent order, Kooner told the BCFSA that he had "obtained verbal consent" from the third owner to sign the letters for all three properties, but he did not follow up with the other two owners to confirm this was the case.

Kooner also admitted that he had forged the signatures.

"The buyer ultimately did not complete the contracts of purchase and sale according to their terms and consequently the assignments also did not complete," the consent order reads.

Kooner admitted that his forgeries amounted to professional misconduct and "conduct unbecoming," acknowledging that he engaged in "wrongful or deceptive dealing" and failed to "act honestly and with reasonable care and skill."

He also agreed to the six-month suspension of his real estate licence – during which time he cannot act as an unlicensed assistant – and agreed to pay a $10,000 fine and $5,000 in enforcement expenses to the BCFSA.

“The penalties imposed by BCFSA on this real estate licensee were the maximum allowed when the misconduct occurred," said Raheel Humayun, the BCFSA's director of investigations, in a news release about the case.

"In 2015, discipline penalties were increased to $250,000 per contravention in order to address and deter serious misconduct of this nature. Licensees have a duty to act honestly, with reasonable care and skill and these actions undermine the integrity of the real estate industry and constitute wrongful or deceptive dealing."

Kooner and his personal real estate company have three months from the date the consent order was signed to pay their fines.  

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