She alleged he never provided her with a statement prepared by the vendors about the fire and repairs, and downplayed what had occurred when discussing the property.<\/p>\n
But Oldham says he did tell the prospective buyer about the fire and denied withholding information about the property\u2019s history.<\/p>\n
Two years after the fire, in preparation for the sale, the owners had drafted a statement describing the cause of the fire and the repairs, but said there was no structural damage.<\/p>\n
The statement said that \u201call fire-related concerns [had been] addressed and signed off by the fire chief\u201d. <\/p>\n
Oldham, as the selling agent, and a second listing agent, whose name is suppressed, agreed that the statement would be provided to prospective buyers as part of the disclosure process.<\/p>\n
The buyer said she never received the statement and was not told how serious the fire was or the extent of the damage.<\/p>\n
She said if she\u2019d known these things, she would never have bought the property. <\/p>\n
The woman told the complaints assessment committee that at the open home, the fire wasn\u2019t disclosed. <\/p>\n
But at a second viewing, she said, when she asked if there were any issues she should know about, Oldham told her that while it was \u201chardly worth mentioning\u201d, a charging laptop started sparking and was quickly extinguished with no damage. <\/p>\n
However, her daughter gave a slightly different account, saying Oldham did mention a smoking laptop at the first open home, but described it only as \u201ca bit of smoke, but nothing more than burnt toast\u201d.<\/p>\n
She says at no point was the word \u201cfire\u201d mentioned.<\/p>\n
Agent said he had no reason to withhold info<\/p>\n
However, the decision stated Oldham maintained he told the woman and her daughter about the fire at both the open home and the second visit. <\/p>\n
He said there was no advantage or reason for him to withhold the information. <\/p>\n
As part of the committee\u2019s decision, it had to consider whether Oldham complied with his professional obligations in respect of the information he provided to the complainant about the property. <\/p>\n
In its substantive decision, the committee said there was no evidence that Oldham knowingly withheld information about defects at the property, or kept the vendor\u2019s statement \u201chidden\u201d as the buyer claimed. <\/p>\n
In issuing a finding of unsatisfactory conduct, the committee noted Oldham\u2019s failure to pass on the vendor\u2019s written statement about the fire to the prospective buyer, his failure to take reasonable steps to verify any information he did pass on, and his failure to recommend that the prospective buyer seek her own expert advice. <\/p>\n
It also dismissed two claims against the listing agent that she had failed to comply with her professional obligations in respect of the information they\u2019d provided to Oldham and the complainant, saying there was no evidence to support these claims. <\/p>\n
The decision said it wasn\u2019t necessary to decide whether disclosures were made during the first or second viewings. <\/p>\n
The committee also expressed concern at the vendor\u2019s statement, saying it appeared to downplay the remedial work that was done. It was also critical of the lack of supporting documentation to corroborate the sign-off by the fire chief. <\/p>\n
It noted that a subsequent engineer\u2019s report, obtained during the committee\u2019s inquiry, found the fire had caused structural damage to the house.<\/p>\n
It was also critical of Oldham\u2019s lack of record-keeping. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe observe that disputes arising from \u2018he said\/she said\u2019 situations of this nature can be effectively avoided if there is a contemporaneous written record of all disclosures made to prospective purchasers,\u201d the decision stated.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Committee therefore reiterates that, as a matter of best practice and to uphold the integrity of their professional obligations, all disclosures should be made promptly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Penalty <\/p>\n
In its penalty decision from May this year, the buyer sought $17,000 in damages, but stressed that it didn\u2019t include the full cost of the remediation work. <\/p>\n
She claimed her investigations had shown that the house wasn\u2019t structurally sound and that the remedial work was carried out without council consent, meaning there is no Code of Compliance certificate. <\/p>\n
But Oldham\u2019s lawyers argued he did not intend to act dishonestly, intentionally, or for personal gain, and he didn\u2019t set out to mislead the buyer. <\/p>\n
The committee noted the penalty orders process wasn\u2019t an opportunity to re-examine or re-litigate the committee\u2019s findings, and so it didn\u2019t address the woman\u2019s claims for damages. <\/p>\n
It fined Oldham $3500 and ordered that he undertake disclosure training. <\/p>\n
Finally, it ordered that the matter be referred to the Real Estate Agents Disciplinary Tribunal to consider whether compensation should be awarded. <\/p>\n
A statement from Barfoot & Thompson said it did not wish to comment, as the matter is still under consideration by the tribunal.<\/p>\n
Catherine Hutton is an Open Justice reporter, based in Wellington. She has worked as a journalist at the Waikato Times and RNZ. Most recently she was working as a media adviser at the Ministry of Justice. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"She alleged he never provided her with a statement prepared by the vendors about the fire and repairs,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":531418,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[199267,6116,95,27079,262253,638,19631,2079,2082,10053,111,139,69,83394,123760,6115,213],"class_list":["post-531417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-199267","tag-agent","tag-and","tag-censured","tag-downplaying","tag-estate","tag-fined","tag-fire","tag-for","tag-house","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-oldham","tag-philip","tag-real","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=531417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/531418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=531417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=531417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=531417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}