Po protect the public, the Organisme d’autoréglementation du courtage immobilier du Québec (OACIQ) is mandated to enforce the law on real estate brokerage. If the number of requests for assistance remained equivalent in 2019 and 2020 (around 2,400), it jumped by 20% in 2021. It is impossible for the moment to know how many of them will lead to investigations.
In the overheating market, a buyer who requested anonymity reported having been informed by the listing broker of active offers on a house before submitting her promise to purchase. “An hour and a half before the bids were presented, the broker called us to tell us how much to put in to win the auction. We knew the price and conditions of other buyers. ” A broker from another agency would have done the same in previous weeks. The gesture is illegal, according to the OACIQ.
Could this practice, which is difficult to prove, be linked to dual representation, when the broker represents both the seller and the buyer? This situation allows him to claim 100% of the commission. “Of course, there is a risk in finding yourself a buyer and a seller at the same time. You have to be very careful to avoid conflicts of interest, ”explains Roch St-Jacques, vice-president of the board of the Outaouais real estate chamber.
Hélène Lauzier, broker for 40 years in the Quebec City region, does not believe in abolishing double representation. Caroline Champagne, Vice-President, Supervision, at the OACIQ, reports that some provinces prohibit it, but not Quebec. “Brokers have an ethical obligation not to place themselves in a conflict of interest.”
At least two brokers who have confided in the Co-ops with the information also raise doubts about transactions concluded before a properly planned visit to the property. “The doubts are greater when the buyer is represented by the same broker as the seller, and it is even more frustrating when we know that our buyer would have offered more than the price obtained”, raises a broker.
Protection of the public
While many consider it unnecessary to tighten the mesh of the net surrounding the practice of brokers, the OACIQ nonetheless quickly organized a one-hour training course to remind people of the rules in a boiling market. All brokers were required to attend by June 15, otherwise their license would be revoked. At the same time, the Minister of Finance, Éric Girard, launched until September a consultation on the practices of brokers in times of overheating.
“It’s quite exceptional that we require training so quickly. It was designed in a spirit of protection of the public to recall good practices and better equip brokers ”, summarizes Caroline Champagne.
Philippe *, a broker active in Montérégie and in the Montreal region, assures us that “all kinds of ways of doing things have been installed” and that “snoros” are finding ways to push back the limits of the law. For the moment, he has not felt the effect of the training in the middle.
“We often have tours that last 20 minutes. When you buy a house at $ 750,000 without an inspection, 20 minutes is not a lot, ”he laments.
Deliberately too low
He also denounces that some brokers deliberately display houses at prices that are too low to stimulate multiple offers. Many buyers will submit a promise to purchase for a house that they would not have visited if the posted price had been fair.
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