Melbourne estate agent cops permanent ban over $167,000 trust account deficit
Melbourne estate agent Kon Balasis and Victorian Realty Group Pty Ltd (VRG), which operated as Century 21 Craigieburn, have been permanently disqualified by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) from holding estate agents’ licences after $167,000 was found missing from a trust account.
In a seperate VCAT ruling, real estate agent’s representative Zoran Rakocevic was banned from being an estate agent's representative or holding an estate agent’s licence for five years after being found guilty of offences, including creating false deposit receipts that led to him benefiting by $156,000.
The permanent disqualification against Kon Balasis and Victorian Realty Group Pty Ltd (VRG) was handed down by VCAT on October 1, reported Consumer Affairs Victoria.
At the VCAT hearing it was found that VRG and Balasis breached the Estate Agents Act 1980 in relation to a deficiency in the Century 21 Craigieburn trust account of $166,935.27 on March 27, 2012, regarding deposits paid on six property sales and that VRG "fraudulently omitting to pay about $177,000 to the persons entitled to that money, which was being held by VRG as a stakeholder pending completion of sales of land.
"Mr Balasis at the time was an officer of VRG and he knowingly authorised these contraventions," said Consumer Affairs.
VRG was also found to have not kept "full and accurate accounting records so as to show the true position of all moneys it received and had also breached the Sale of Land Act in that "it received deposit moneys in the course of transactions for the sale of land and did not hold that money as stakeholder until the purchasers became entitled to those deposits".
The tribunal ruled that Balasis was guilty of conduct as an estate agent that rendered him unfit to hold a licence and he was not of good character or otherwise a fit and proper person to hold an estate agent’s licence.
VCAT cancelled Balasis’ licence and permanently disqualified VRG and Balasis from holding a licence.
In the hearing into allegations against Zoran Rakocevic, Consumer Affairs said he had "created false receipts for the sale of four properties, stating that Compton and Green Real Estate Pty Ltd (where he was employed as an agent’s representative) had received a deposit on each, when it had not,” said Consumer Affairs Victoria.
VCAT also upheld Consumer Affairs' allegations that Rakocevic made false statements in contracts of sale in relation to six properties, "incorrectly stating that C&G was the vendor’s agent when C&G was not the vendor’s agent".
In a further three contracts of sale, Rakocevic was found to have falsely stated that "the vendor had agreed to sell the property described in the contract when the vendor had not so agreed"
VCAT made orders that Rakocevic was "not of good character and is not otherwise a fit and proper person to be an agent’s representative".
In her finding, VCAT senior member Jacqueline Preuss described Rakocevic’s conduct as "deliberate, calculated and carried out over a number of months".
Preuss found that Rakocevic benefitted from his offences because, in three of the transactions involving false deposit receipts and contracts of sale, the company of which he was sole director and shareholder, Montex Corporation Pty Ltd, received $156,419.99.
"Mr Rakocevic’s behaviour was compounded by the fact that he exhibited an unwillingness to admit indisputable facts such as receipt by him of a financial benefit from the transactions. In my view, this indicated a disregard for his duty of honesty and candour’, she said.