Written answer by Ministry of National Development on number of estate agents who have been disciplined or fined for breaching professional and ethical standards

Oct 14, 2024

Question No: 6540

Question by: Mr Saktiandi Supaat

To ask the Minister for National Development (a) in each of the past five years, how many estate agents have been disciplined for breaching their professional and ethical obligations and are (i) fined or subject to financial penalty (ii) suspended from practising as an estate agent (iii) disqualified from acting as an estate agent and (iv) sentenced to imprisonment, respectively; and (b) whether the penalties for breaching the Estate Agents Act and its subsidiary regulation are sufficient to deter misconduct by estate agents.

Answer:

The Council for Estate Agencies (CEA) takes a serious view of errant behaviour by property agents and will take agents to task for breaching their professional and ethical obligations.

Today, there are about 36,800 registered property agents in Singapore. Property agents who commit offences under the Estate Agents Act 2010 (EAA) or its subsidiary legislation may be prosecuted in court, or issued composition fines by CEA. Between 2019 and 2023, 19 property agents were convicted in Court and fined for offences under the EAA, with none sentenced to imprisonment. 38 property agents were issued composition fines. 23 property agents had their registrations revoked for not being fit and proper to remain registered.

Property agents who commit disciplinary breaches may be subject to disciplinary proceedings before a Disciplinary Committee (DC) or disciplined under the Letter of Censure (LOC) regime, depending on the severity of the breach. Between 2019 and 2023, 101 property agents were given financial penalties and some of them were also suspended by a DC. Since the introduction of the LOC regime in 2021, CEA has censured a total of 38 property agents in 2022 and 2023, of which 16 were also given a financial penalty.

In 2021, to strengthen deterrence, CEA raised the maximum financial penalty that a DC can impose from $75,000 to $100,000 per case for property agents and $200,000 per case for property agencies. Disciplinary actions taken against property agents are also published in the CEA Public Register for added deterrence and transparency. CEA will continue to monitor and re-calibrate the enforcement framework where necessary.