Real estate agent conned widow out of $160,000

A real estate agent has been struck off after ripping off more than $160,000 from an elderly woman in a "flagrant and dishonest breach of his obligations".

Patrick William Walker obtained a cheque for $70,000 in order to buy a house in Reefton for Edith South which was never purchased.

The two became close after Mrs South's husband died in 2000, when she was 71, and Walker was granted power of attorney when she suffered a stroke a year later.

He took advantage of that to funnel another $92,438.22 in cheques and cash from her ATM card between April 2007 and November 2008.

The $70,000 was supposedly to buy the house the pair were living in together. But Mrs South laid a complaint with the police and the Real Estate Agents Disciplinary Tribunal after discovering she was not the owner.

The elderly woman got to know Walker in Wellington around 1998 when he acted for her as an agent on the sale of her house. When he moved to the West Coast to start a franchise with The Professionals group, South moved with him.

"In 2006, the defendant informed the complainant that he was moving to Reefton," the tribunal said.

"He later suggested that the complainant may also wish to move to Reefton and that he could arrange for her to purchase a property. The complainant subsequently moved to Reefton and into a property in which the defendant was also living."

Mrs South later discovered she did not own the property so she complained to the police and the Real Estate Agents Authority.

The tribunal took his licence and said it would have liked also to have made an order for compensation but could not because the offending happened before the Real Estate Agents Act 2008 came into force.

Police have not yet laid any charges, but Mrs South says if they do, she hopes Walker will pay the price of his actions.