Estate Agencies
The estate agency industry handles property transactions that often involve substantial financial commitments and the lifelong savings of clients. Estate agents and salespersons must therefore act honestly and uphold proper and ethical standards. Corruption or unethical conduct can harm stakeholders and undermine confidence in the property market, Maintaining high standards of integrity is not only a legal obligation but also the foundation of sustainable business practice in the industry.
The Private Sector Integrity Centre (PSIC) offers free anti-corruption and integrity training to help estate agents remain vigilant against corruption risks and uphold high integrity standards. We also provide free corruption prevention advisory services and practical resources to help estate agency companies in strengthening safeguards and fostering an ethical culture.
Corruption Risks
- Compromised estate agents who represent both vendors and purchasers (i.e. dual agents) solicit or accept advantages from vendors or purchasers in exchange for showing favour to one party during property transactions.
- Compromised estate agents who represent both vendors and purchasers (i.e. dual agents) solicit or accept additional commission from purchasers for securing a lower price from vendors (i.e. persuading vendors to reduce the asking price).
- Unscrupulous estate agents representing purchasers accept bribes from vendors for providing misleading information to purchasers, in order to facilitate a transaction.
- Colluding estate agents solicit or accept illegal rebates in exchange for transferring client data or property listings to other agencies or third parties.
- Compromised estate agents accept advantages as a reward for referring clients to banks, law firms or other service providers.
- Unscrupulous estate agents offer advantages to clients or their representatives to secure business deals (e.g. offering advantage to a developer’s representative in exchange for being appointed as the sole agent to handle the sale/tenancy of the developer’s property).
- Unscrupulous estate agents offer a rebate to staff of a government department or public body for facilitating a property transaction of the government department/ public body at a higher price.
- Colluding estate agents offer “lai see”or other advantages to caretakers or property management staff in return for assistance in letting or selling flats.
- Unscrupulous estate agents fabricate fictitious application records to deceive the company into paying higher commissions.
- Staff members submit false reimbursement claims (e.g. inflating or fabricating entertainment expenses) to defraud the company.
- Staff members use falsified training certificates or documents to obtain job-related allowance or training subsidies.
- Staff members submit false attendance or overtime records to mislead the company into paying allowances.
- Staff members falsify or manipulate quotation documents to influence the selection of suppliers or service providers for personal gain.
- Dishonest estate agents defraud banks by inflating the transaction price of properties to obtain higher mortgage loans.
- Compromised estate agents facilitate property transactions for clients with suspicious sources of funds, without conducting proper due diligence.
- Estate agents fail to declare or properly manage conflicts of interest arising from personal relationships, which may affect their impartiality in a property transaction.
Resources
Integrity Training
The Private Sector Integrity Centre (PSIC) offers free anti-corruption and integrity training to help estate agency companies build an ethical corporate culture and prevent corruption and fraud.
PSIC organises webinars on the “PSIC Channel” for business practitioners across various sectors and industries. Click here to view details of the upcoming webinars and enroll now!
PSIC provides free, tailor-made training for estate agents.
Please contact us if you wish to arrange integrity and corruption prevention training.
