Source: CBC —
The body that regulates Ontario’s 100,000 real estate agents and brokers is urging them to be more vigilant when verifying the identity of a client, amid a wave of fraudulent home sales and mortgages in the Toronto area.
The Real Estate Council of Ontario (RECO) memo, sent Tuesday afternoon, reminds members they’re required by law to verify the parties in a transaction are who they say.
“You play a crucial role in protecting the interests of your clients and the integrity of real estate transactions,” the memo reads.
“Your duties … also include continuously being vigilant for anything that seems suspicious or inconsistent.”
The memo comes just weeks after CBC News published a series of reports that found dozens of homes in the Toronto area have had either mortgages placed on them without owners’ consent or sold without their knowledge. CBC News is aware of at least six properties that were fraudulently sold.
In those cases, the owners were often out of the country and had rented their homes before individuals posing as the owners put them up for sale. Police are investigating.
RECO registrar Joseph Richer said in a statement the alert was issued because the alleged frauds are “causing tremendous hardship to victims.”
While RECO’s move is being welcomed by some, others question why the memo is only being released now, and how agents who don’t follow the rules are being held to account.
One of the memo’s recommendations is for agents to confirm an individual looks like the photo on their identification and that “the age seems reasonable.”
“I think that is directly related to our case,” said Melissa Walsh.
