Real estate agent censured for abusive email

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An estate agent who inadvertently copied a vendor into an email which slagged them off has been censured by the Real Estate Agents Authority.

Ocena (Maree) Clarke of Re/Max Latitude 36 in Albany was found by the authority's complaints assessment committee to have engaged in unsatisfactory conduct, in a href="http://media.nzherald.co.nz/webcontent/document/pdf/20116/clarkedecision.pdf" target="_blank">decision released today.

Clarkes describes the vendor as "smug" before vowing to put her "in her place" in an email to a colleague in March last year.

"I will sort her out - if they have taken it upon themselves to assume my buyers came in just for them well... they are totally wrong".

"Mrs V has NO reason to be sitting there smug - she'll only be setting herself and Mr V up for a huge let down. I know how Asians work!"

The complaints assessment committee said it was difficult to comprehend how someone using care, skill and competence could have sent such an email.

"The offensive email...falls short of the standard that a reasonable member of the public is entitled to expect from a reasonably competent licensee," the committee said.

Clarke said the email should not detract from any of the work that was done prior to it being sent and described her disappointment at the complaint by the vendors being escalated to a hearing.

Clarke added, in a written submission to the committee, that her conduct was unintentional and was not motivated by gain or intended to disadvantage anyone.

However the committee noted that the vendors were that they were not entirely happy with the service even before the email was sent.

"Part of Mr and Mrs V's complaint was that they were not kept informed of the (sale) process."

The committee censured Clarke and ordered her to pay the vendors $5000 and apologise to them in writing.

"The committee can only hope that that is not the tone that Ms Clarke normally uses for her internal correspondence".