Property scam sees real estate agents' licences suspended

Three real estate agents have had their licence certificates suspended after being found to have inflated house sale prices, the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand (REINZ) said today.

Phillip John Niall, Faizel Jassat, and a third agent with name suppression were working for real estate company Barfoot and Thompson at the time the scam was uncovered.

Also involved was Margot Jassat, who was an assistant to Faizel Jassat, and another with name suppression, who was a former real estate agent for Barfoot and Thompson.

REINZ national president Murray Cleland said the case was complex and understood it involved the five buying development properties and inflating sale prices in order to borrow from banks via mortgages.

REINZ had wasted no time in initiating proceedings and having the salespeople's certificates suspended, he said .

"We take our statutory obligations very seriously and in cases of this nature we do not hesitate in seeking orders such as interim suspension.

"We need to protect the public, the borrowers and the industry."

Mr Cleland said the problem was uncovered by Barfoot and Thompson, which detected discrepancies in property transactions involving three of its sales men.

Their contracts were immediately terminated following the discovery and the institute was alerted.

They were served with orders by the Real Estate Agents Licencing Board and were prohibited from selling real estate until the board determined the substantive case issued by REINZ.

Barfoot and Thomson director Peter Thompson told Radio NZ that as it was the salespeople themselves buying the properties no private vendor had been affected by any of the transactions.

Mr Thompson said they had uncovered 20 transactions at this stage, which had been processed between last November and May.

The discrepancies had been discovered by accident after a company policy had been broken, Mr Thompson said.

"Once we started uncovering it, it made it a wider transgression they were doing and involved a lot of people."

Between 20 and 25 people were involved in the scam, including developers and valuers, he said.

Several banks had been involved in the plot and it was up to them to press criminal charges, he said.

"We had heard the Serious Fraud Office was investigating."

- NZPA