Real Estate Licensee to Pay $120k, Has Licences Cancelled for Undermining Client’s Bid

A real estate agent who intentionally undermined a client’s bid on a property and manipulated the sales process for his own financial benefit has been fined $120,000 and had his licences cancelled.

At the end of 2017 and into 2018, Alan Hu was assisting his client to purchase a property in Surrey, B.C. However, when his client’s initial offer on the property fell through, Hu, using the knowledge he had gained from his client’s offer, worked with a family friend to make an offer to purchase the same property despite his client’s continued interest in the property. The family friend’s offer to purchase the property was accepted, and the purchase contract was then assigned to Hu who subsequently completed the purchase of the property. Hu also received a referral fee for the contract from the family friend’s real estate licensee.

In 2021, Hu sold the property for more than $1 million more than the 2018 purchase price. Hu’s client later discovered Hu had purchased the property in 2018 after seeing him there and obtaining a copy of the property title. Hu’s client subsequently filed a notice of civil claim and submitted a complaint to BCFSA.

The client was successful in the civil claim and the judge ordered Hu liable to disgorge all profits he received from the sale of the property, including the commission he improperly took for the purchase of the property. BCFSA’s parallel investigation found that Hu committed conduct unbecoming a licensee by intentionally undermining the client’s bid to purchase the property and manipulating the sales process so he could invest in the property himself for his own financial benefit.

Hu was also found to have committed professional misconduct when he:

• Failed to act honestly in providing real estate services to the client;
• Failed to disclose all known material information to the client;
• Failed to maintain the client’s confidentiality;
• Failed to act in the best interests of the client;
• Failed to disclose the conflict of interest;
• Provided trading services outside of the brokerage with which he was licensed; and
• Failed to promptly remit the money he had collected and received in relation to the purchase to his brokerage at the time.

Hu further failed to keep his managing broker informed and failed to notify BCFSA of the court judgement of the civil suit, made on January 10, 2025.

As a result of BCFSA’s investigations into Hu’s activities, Hu and his personal real estate corporation must pay a discipline penalty of $120,000 and his licences have been cancelled.

“Real estate licensees have an enshrined duty to act in the best interests of their client, and Hu’s actions ran wholly contrary to that duty,” said Jon Vandall, Senior Vice President of Compliance and Enforcement at BCFSA. “Hu undermined his own client for personal gain and demonstrated a clear disregard for the established ethical expectations for licensees. The significant penalty issued to Hu, including the outright cancellation of his real estate licence, reflects the severity of Hu’s actions.”