Real-estate broker Tatiana Londono has taken responsibility for the actions of her former assistant – a broker who falsified a client’s signature on contracts to sell two Westmount apartments in 2008 and 2009.

Real-estate broker Tatiana Londono has taken responsibility for the actions of her former assistant – a broker who falsified a client’s signature on contracts to sell two Westmount apartments in 2008 and 2009.

The head of Londono Realty Group said she didn’t know her assistant had forged the signature of the Montreal businesswoman who’d once been her regular client.

But since the listings were in Londono’s name, the founder of a Montreal agency with more than 100 brokers acknowledged she should have better “supervised” the ex-employee.

“I have taken steps to improve the system of control at my office to ensure that this never happens again,” Londono told a disciplinary committee of the Organisme d’Autoréglementation du courtage immobilier du Québec, or OACIQ, on Monday.

The OACIQ, which was created to apply and enforce Quebec’s Real Estate Brokerage Act, brought disciplinary charges for the employee’s actions against Londono in November 2009 because she was the listing broker on the Redfern Ave. apartments.

The disciplinary case highlights how star real-estate brokers routinely seek help on their files from other agents on everything from clerical work to the holding of open houses.

Yet Quebec real-estate law holds the listing broker accountable.

“I went through every single file, I just didn’t know it wasn’t the client’s signature,” Londono later told The Gazette in an interview.

Dressed elegantly in a black suit, with a matching Chanel bag and Christian Louboutin stilettos, the star of the HGTV reality series The Property Shop agreed to plead guilty to the disciplinary charges, in a deal reached with the OACIQ’s assistant syndic.

Lawyers for both sides urged the committee to fine Londono $6,000 and reprimand her, but not to suspend her licence to practice real estate.

The committee has yet to decide how to reprimand Londono.

“I understand it’s not Mme. Londono who did it, but signing for someone else is still a serious action,” a committee member said.

Citing testimony from the case, OACIQ lawyer Yannick Chartrand said the employee had no listings of her own and worked directly under Londono’s supervision. She faces separate charges and is to appear before the committee in September.

The case against Londono stems from the 2008 and 2009 inscriptions of the Redfern Ave. co-op apartments on the Multiple Listing Service, the online database used in the majority of Canadian real estate sales.

The co-ops were owned by Londono’s client, businesswoman Afsana Amarsy, who was described as being difficult to reach because of her frequent trips outside Canada.

In a letter presented to the committee by Londono’s attorney, Michael Concister, Amarsy wrote that she had willingly given the assistant “the specific authorization to prepare and sign on my behalf any and all documents necessary for the inscription of units on MLS.”

Yet Chartrand said Amarsy had written a note questioning the extension of Londono’s sales mandate in January 2009. The discovery was made, Chartrand said, when a rival Westmount broker signed a separate contract to sell the properties for Amarsy, only to discover they were already listed.

“All these elements reduce the public’s confidence in brokers.”

As for Londono, the broker with the trademark blond curls said the case has prompted an overhaul at her office. The real estate industry as a whole, she said, has now become stricter because of Quebec’s Brokerage Act, which went into effect in May 2010.

For example, all sales data at Londono’s office, including promises to purchase and amendments, must now be entered into a computer system, she said.

Any brokers helping Londono on one of her files must do the work under their names.

“Since then I’m doing what I have to do to protect the public, the brokers and the reputation that I’ve worked hard to build,” she said.

“I don’t take anything for granted anymore.”

Posted in: Real-estate broker Tatiana Londono