A B.C. Realtor has failed in his bid to regain his licence at the Supreme Court of B.C following a lengthy process with real estate regulators.
Appearing on his own behalf before the court, where he again “demonstrated that he remains ungovernable,” Andrew Brian Laity claimed the Financial Services Tribunal (FST) erred in its process and decision to uphold a decision by the Real Estate Council of BC to not renew his licence.
Between 2012 and 2018 Laity was the managing broker of List Assist Mere Postings Ltd. but in February 2018, he had to disclose during his renewal application that he had been charged with three criminal offences, according to the July 7 court decision from Justice Lisa Warren.
Laity was charged with uttering threats to cause death or bodily harm to family members, assaulting two security guards and assaulting a jail guard — all from three separate events between September 2017 and February 2018.
On June 4, 2018, the charges were stayed after Laity completed alternative measures programs, including Alcoholics Anonymous and anger management sessions — that he would later tell the council’s hearing committee were “a complete waste of time,” according to the decision.
Realtors must satisfy the council that they are “of good reputation and suitable to be licensed,” the decision noted. (As Laity's case progressed, the council was dissolved and its regulatory powers replaced by the Superintendent of Real Estate with the BC Financial Services Authority.)
But Laity’s standing was called into question, in particular, when he sent several emails to the council “in which he made accusations of fraud, corruption and rape within the real estate industry, and extremely disparaging and inflammatory comments about Council staff,” the decision stated.
A council hearing committee assessed the renewal application with guidance from the council’s “Good Reputation, Suitability and Fitness” guidelines. The judge noted the committee found, aside from bookkeeping irregularities at the brokerage, Laity was “evasive to an extreme” and “inherently unbelievable” — in part because Laity “expressed repeatedly his view that there was fraud, corruption and rape within the industry and that the Council and its employees were participants.”
In 2022, Laity appealed his three-year licensure renewal application ban to the tribunal, where a tribunal panel dismissed Laity’s submission in its entirety.
Laity then went to court for a judicial review.
The judge found several aspects of Laity’s application problematic: “Mr. Laity did not identify any ground of appeal that could be said to emerge from the material he submitted to the FST that was not addressed in the FST Decision.”
And, “As noted, Mr. Laity’s submissions on this application focused on his claim that the Panel overlooked evidence of fraud and perjury. As expanded on later, the Panel did not do so. First, I wish to emphasize that, although it is not the Court’s role to evaluate the evidence before the Hearing Committee, Mr. Laity failed entirely to support his vague allegations of fraud, corruption, and perjury.”
The judge noted Laity “was unruly in the courtroom, often speaking with a loud and hostile tone and behaving in an aggressive manner; and he was disrespectful to the Court.”
