Retired B.C. agent fined $60K for concealing archaeological status of property

A former Vancouver Island real estate agent has been fined $60,000 for withholding information about a property that sits on a protected archaeological site, a breach that left the buyer with a six-figure loss, B.C.’s regulator has ruled.

The B.C. Financial Services Authority (BCFSA) said Judy Bood, who had only been licensed for three years when the situation transpired, committed professional misconduct by failing to disclose that the coastal property was subject to the Heritage Conservation Act.

The property, located on Vancouver Island, was listed for sale by Bood in July 2018 after she had already confirmed through an archaeological consulting firm that the land was part of a protected site, meaning it could not be altered without special government permits, according to the regulator’s Jan. 10 decision. 

Despite that knowledge, the property disclosure statement filed with the listing indicated that the land was not designated as a heritage site.

Buyer kept in the dark

According to the decision, Bood had listed the property once before it was sold, and would verbally tell prospective buyers that it was archaeologically significant.

When a buyer submitted an offer of $300,000 in October 2018, the seller instructed Bood not to reveal the archaeological status of the property, an instruction Bood followed. The transaction closed later that month. 

Shortly after taking possession, the buyer was clearing brush and trees of the property and received a phone call from the provincial Archaeology Branch and was ordered to stop clearing the land because of its protected status. 

Unable to proceed with planned development, the buyer later sold the property for $200,000, incurring losses of about $110,000, including costs.

Hearing officer calls conduct deceptive

In the decision, hearing officer Andrew Pendray said Bood’s failure to disclose was not a matter of oversight, but a deliberate choice that was deceiving.

“She was aware that she had a duty to disclose that information, and she chose not to, with a view to ensuring that the transaction would proceed,” Pendray wrote, adding that her conduct “can properly be seen as an attempt to deceive the buyer.”

Bood’s submissions

Bood, who is now retired and has no prior disciplinary history, admitted to the misconduct and cooperated with investigators. 

She said her actions were a mistake that she had made during a difficult time in her life due to health reasons, and one that there was no risk of her ever making again.

While she acknowledged that her actions were intentional, she submitted that they were not “significantly deceptive or fraudulent.”

She said her health condition had left her “without any fight” in respect to the directions given by her seller client, and she had simply latched onto the fact that the buyer was a sophisticated developer. 

This argument did not fly with the regulator, which wrote: “If the buyer was so sophisticated as to have been assumed to have knowledge of potential archaeological issues, what harm would the disclosure of the fact of the archaeological site have caused?” 

It said that the $110,000 financial loss suffered by the buyer was an aggravating factor working against Bood.

Penalty handed down to ‘send a signal’ to agents

The decision refers to Bood’s actions as “serious misconduct,” and says that the goal of the fine is to prevent similar situations from playing out in the future.

“…The quantity of the penalty in this case should be enough to act as a clear signal to Ms. Bood, to other licensees in Ms. Bood’s position in the future, and to the public that appropriate disclosure of material latent defects must be made.”

The decision reads that the sanctioning should serve as a reminder to other registrants that, in such situations where a client has instructed an agent to act outside the rules, the agent is required to refuse to continue providing service to that client. 

In addition to the $60,000 fine, Bood was also ordered to pay $6,500 to cover fees associated with the investigation and disciplinary proceedings.