Real estate agent fined for guessing at sale price

The complaint against Wonchul (James) Bae arose when a vendor asked what a house in his neighbourhood had recently sold for. Photo / File

A real estate agent that gave a vendor the wrong information about the sale price of a property in his neighbourhood has been fined for his unsatisfactory conduct.

The complaint against Wonchul (James) Bae arose when a vendor asked what a house in his neighbourhood had recently sold for.

Bae said it sold for close to it's CV and guessed it would be around $920,000.

The complainant said he relied on the information from Bae being correct and based on this he accepted $828,000 for his home in an area that hasn't been revealed by the Real Estate Agents Authority Complaints Assessment Committee.

The vendor later found out the property in his neighbourhood sold for $955,000 and said he would not have sold his property for $828,00 if he had known the true sale price of the other house.

The Complaints Assessment Committee said in its decision it is unacceptable conduct for a real estate agent to take a guess at information requested by the vendor.

Bae, who at the time was working for Mountfort Estate Agents Limited trading as Ray White Botany Town Centre, made no effort to verify what he had told the vendor was correct, the Committee said.

"It is of course impossible for any licensee to remember details of all sales; but having given this information to the Complainant, and knowing that the Complainant was using this information to help decide what amount to accept for his own Property, the Licensee had a duty to check this information when back in his office and provide the correct information as soon as possible."

The committee ordered Bae apologise in writing to the vendor, undergo training and pay a fine of $1,500 to the Real Estate Agents Authority in December 2015 and published its decision publicly on Friday.