$5,000 fine for agent who put up fake listing of semi-detached house
SINGAPORE – When questioned by the Council for Estate Agencies (CEA), an ERA property agent fabricated a listing for a semi-detached home that did not exist and lied about it. This was done as a marketing strategy.
Terrence Lin, 37 years old, was the first individual to be brought to justice under the Estate Agents Act for supplying misleading information. The incident occurred on Friday. As a result of his offenses, he was given a $5,000 fine.
In the fall of 2020, the owners of a home in the Whitley Residences complex, which is located on Whitley Road and consists of 61 semi-detached apartments, hired Lin to sell their property. This transaction took place between September and October.
The owners also recruited a second real estate agent, who would only identify himself as Gideon, to assist in the marketing and selling of their home.
Lin published an advertising on the real estate website PropertyGuru in October 2020, requesting a price of $4.8 million for the home. As a result of the low level of interest received, this was later reduced to $4.6 million in November of 2020.
In the latter part of that month, Lin posted a fraudulent listing on PropertyGuru purporting to be for another apartment at the Whitley Residences. The property was put up for sale with a more reasonable and enticing asking price of $4.38 million.
Lin did this because he was interested in seeing how potential buyers of the apartment would react to it.
He said, “After I saw Res Courses 2023 reaction for the $4.6 million listing, I established this listing in order to send (possible buyers) to the developer’s units.” I responded, “This listing was produced by me to guide (prospective buyers) to the developer’s units.” It was successful, and I was able to see a couple of questions.”
In November of the year 2020, Lin discovered that another real estate agent, who only went by the name Denise, had used a phony version of his listing to promote the home.
On November 15, 2020, when he approached her, she said that Gideon was the one who had given the information that was on her listing.
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