It's possible to mislead a real estate buyer without inventing a sale price. Sometimes the problem is which asking price an agent chooses to compare with the final price, or whether a post implies that the person celebrating the transaction actually represented the client. In Applicant 4 (Re), 2024 BCSRE 78, the British Columbia Superintendent of Real Estate examined 3 Instagram posts and the professional responsibility of a licensee who had been tagged in one of them. Hearing officer Gareth Reeves confirmed a $1,000 penalty under section 41 of the Real Estate Services Rules on November 1, 2024.
The first post concerned a West Vancouver property. Another licensee had written that a home advertised at about $5.3 million had sold for $4.5 million, suggesting an $800,000 negotiating achievement. The actual listing and sale prices were $5,280,000 and $4,575,000, a difference of $705,000. The applicant hadn't written that post and hadn't agreed in advance to being tagged in it. He nevertheless remained tagged on his professional account for months while continuing to use Instagram. The hearing officer found that the platform's notification and untagging functions gave him a practical opportunity to review the claim and remove his association with it.
That finding turned on the particular definition of publishing in the rules, which included causing or permitting material to appear. The officer reasoned that permission could be inferred when a licensee knew, or ought reasonably to have known, that a publication associated with his professional account was continuing. The mere fact that someone else composed the words didn't decide the issue. Given the sustained tag on an active professional account, the applicant should have checked the price claim or removed himself from the post. The $95,000 exaggeration was misleading, and he was found to have permitted its publication.
There was an important limit to that first finding. BCFSA had also alleged that the tagging suggested the applicant was a designated agent in the West Vancouver transaction. Although his association with the other licensees might have invited speculation, the officer found that the evidence didn't establish that additional representation on a balance of probabilities. The incorrect price claim stood on its own. That distinction prevented a general conclusion that every social media tag communicates agency in a transaction.
The second post was the applicant's own. Describing a Coquitlam purchase, he claimed the buyers had secured a price more than $600,000 below the property's listing price, referring to an original asking price of $2,388,000 and a sale price of $1,750,008. By the time of the purchase, however, the actual asking price was $1,790,800. The reduction from that current price was only $40,792. His language also referred to what “we” had done for “our buyers”. He had referred the clients to a more experienced agent who handled their transaction and hadn't established that he personally acted as their designated agent. Both the implied negotiating achievement and implied agency were found misleading.
For the third property, also in Coquitlam, the applicant said he had obtained a $50,000 reduction, although the difference between the $860,000 asking price and $812,000 sale price was $48,000. He defended the round number as easier to understand and said he hadn't meant to deceive anyone. The officer considered the $2,000 difference small, but thought it just as easy to write the accurate figure or make clear that the number was approximate. Across the 3 posts, the question was whether the licensee knew or ought to have known the published claims were inaccurate and whether he had taken reasonable care.
BCFSA could have sought a base penalty of $3,000 for the 3 contraventions, but its original notice imposed only $1,000. The hearing officer regarded that amount as appropriate and confirmed it. No damages to a purchaser were assessed, and the finding about agency was expressly different for the first and second properties. Anyone using sale results to market professional services can apply the practical lesson. Compare the sale price with the relevant asking price at the time, distinguish referrals from client representation, and don't leave someone else's inaccurate claim linked to a professional profile simply because it wasn't your own post. The legal conclusion remains one about BC real estate advertising rules and these established facts, rather than a blanket rule that every tag is unlawful.
Source
Complete original redacted BCFSA reasons, Applicant 4 (Re), 2024 BCSRE 78. Decision dated November 1, 2024, file 23-4980, all 8 pages and paragraphs 1 to 59 reviewed. The original penalty notice was issued June 12, 2024, which had incorrectly been used as the judgment date in the original Binder identity record. The source contains apparent 2023/2024 slips when summarizing the Instagram post dates at the end. Its underlying transaction chronology places the 3 posts in 2023.