BC Financial Services Authority

The Real Estate Council provides useful newsletters on its website. It also allows consumers to search if an agent has a licensee and if the licensee has any discipline issues. The public can also download the annual report that provides very useful real estate industrial news. We asked the Council staffs questions and often get professional responses. A few things we hope to ask is that firstly, the language requirement to be licensed may not be fair to everyone. Passing CELPIP level 7 for all reading, writing, speaking, and listening all at once may not be fair to everyone. We ask that if someone gets Level 7,7,7, 6, and he just rewrites on the portion that he gets below level 7. Secondly, a lot of times licensees are being taken advantage of. For example, some buyers employ licensees' services, the licensees help find the subject properties, but the buyers ended up dealing with the sellers directly in order to reduce the purchase price by cutting down the commission. And a lot of time agents' commission is being misappropriated and super long delay payout by certain real estate brokerages.

It's truly unfortunate that this institution is run like this.Compared to RECA, BCFSA is utter garbage.$1,500 renewal fees are nothing more than a massive cash grab.Trying to find out what courses are required is brutal.Getting a live" person to communicate with you is nearly impossible.This institution was not created to assist members

These ppl don’t work at all!! They just here to slow things down and charge us (realtors) a lot of money for the service that we don’t get!! Very rude ppl if you get a chance to talk to them! They are literally act like we owe something to them! Thou it is them that owe us good service because this is us who paying them! We deserve better ppl to deal with not this arrogant rude ppl! I went to their office to follow with my application! There were just 2 women, music was loud and they were literally dancing and chatting! When I said you guys apparently don’t work they threaten me to call security!! Very disrespectful!! The mandatory courses are only for monetary purposes and there is no education in it at all!! And these guys representing us, realtors! This is why we can’t create trust among public! We literally pay their wages and they don’t even give us any service! They are ruining our image in the public! We literally need to do something about this awful organization! Look how many ppl said the front lady is rude and I am pretty sure she has not received any notice from above! She will continue to be rude!

I had my realtor on video suggesting people purchase a new construction home over mine during an open house FOR MY HOUSE. She also disparaged features of my home to would be buyers. She even went as far as to breach the Canadian Protection of Information Privacy Act and tell people strolling through my house where I worked and what my motivation for selling was.With an official court transcript of the recordings to review, the council decided to not allow it as evidence for my complaint describing the conversations my realtor had as private communication" . . . AT AN OPEN TO THE PUBLIC OPEN HOUSE. I think the real issue here is that they are afraid of people doing what I did and finding out that the majority of realtors are crooked

It is very tough to communicate with the BCFSA. It seems that there are some systematic changes that are required. Every call goes to voicemail, every call is only called back once, and only 20% of the time a voicemail is left- so you are required to call back, leave a voicemail, and hope to not miss their return call.Those answering are generally hostile unhelpful. Multiple people would try to answer my question by reading off of the website, almost implying that I don't need to be calling but can find all answers on the website. The answer, however, wouldn't satisfy the question (hence why I would call- for more clarification on what the website says). I called another time to check that I wasn't missing anything in my paperwork, and was informed that since the last time they returned my call they hadn't received an application. When I pulled up the email I sent, I was informed that my application was being processed and that I can't expect that my application have any priority over any others (implying that I am trying to rush mine along? After I was told I hadn't even submitted one?).Overall, it has been beyond frustrating trying to get confirmation and clarification. I don't want to belittle anyone working there, it seems as though they have been put into a position where they have too many calls to answer and not enough resources to deal with all of the questions.If you have to deal with the BCFSA, be diligent with confirming everything you send is received, picking up their calls, replying to any missed calls, and doing as much research as you can before calling.

If I could do less than 1 star I would... I had a multitude of proof that our Property Management Company (owner was our property manager) had broken the rules that govern SPMC's and I get a response that makes literally no sense. He did things that were not allowed yet he gets to keep screwing owners and Strata Corporations over. Even after contacting Tony G @ CHOA and getting his opinion - that what he did is not allowed - they just ignore the details and focus on other things in my complaint. DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME - sadly they don't care.

Very frustrating to deal with. These guys are extremely understaffed and by looking at rest of the comments they haven't done anything to address the issue in years. When you call, they will never pick up and you will only get called back 1 out of 3 times two or three days later. While the lady that returns my phone calls is not hostile, she certainly isn't helpful and gets impatient when I ask her to help me or try to get more information. A similar process could be done within the same day in Alberta is gonna take more than 2 month for them while they charge the same fees. Why not just hire more people? They are obviously making a boat load of money nowadays with amount of new realtors in BC.

The senior white lady with glasses and sit in the front dest, she is super rude. I understand, she's been answering the phones all day every day. But if you don't want your day get ruined. You better get away from her and ask someone else!

How do you expect to build consumer trust when no one answers the phone? I tried every single department this morning and got the answering machine. I have been calling from Feb.24th, numerous times every day, left voicemails, sent emails and I have yet to hear back. Are you guys that short handed that you can never respond or call back? A simple request takes you guys 5 business days and if there are any mistakes you have to wait another 5 business days. If you want to restore consumer confidence then start with yourselves first because the customer service you provide is absolute trash.

I called to find out more on the new rules and had some clarifying questions from the answer to my original question.I was told, “this conversation is over and was hung up on.I thought the whole purpose for real estate council existence is to help realtors and public and not to be rude to us.