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BC woman ordered to pay $35,000 for arranging mortgages without registration

BC woman ordered to pay ,000 for arranging mortgages without registration

A woman from B.C.’s Lower Mainland has been fined $35,000 after admitting she “passed off” as a mortgage broker in preparing 10 mortgage applications despite not having the necessary registration.

Three of the mortgage applications involving Sarbjit Bains also contained “forged financial documents,” according to a consent order she signed with the province’s registrar of mortgage brokers.

While the forged documents were provided to Bains by another unregistered broker, identified in the consent order only as JKC, Bains did not confirm their accuracy or meet with the mortgage applicants involved before passing them on to a bank employee.

“Ms. Bains knew or should have known that these documents were not genuine,” reads the Oct. 22 order, which also notes that bank employees “relied on some of the documents” to “make loan decisions.”

The name of the bank is stated in the order.

Course never completed

Bains was working as a mortgage specialist at another financial institution – whose name is also mentioned in the order – when she helped arrange the ten mortgages between 2018 and 2019.

She acknowledged this was beyond the scope of her role and in violation of BC’s Mortgage Brokers Act.

Bains has never been registered as a mortgage broker or sub-mortgage broker in BC – although she signed up for a mortgage broker course in 2017 and planned to take the same course in 2019, she never completed either effort.

Mortgage specialists are commissioned salespeople limited to dealing in “products offered by the bank or institution that employs them,” according to the Canadian Securities Institute.

Of the ten applications Bains helped submit to an external bank, five were provided by JKC.

The consent order does not explain how Bains and JKC met or began working together, but mentions an investigation that found he had also provided fraudulent documents to others working in the mortgage industry, including registered brokers.

Commissions sent via e-transfer

Bains also helped prepare applications on behalf of four acquaintances, and the registrar discovered that in those cases she had been “conducting business as a mortgage broker” by meeting the borrowers, obtaining their personal information and working with a sub-mortgage broker from the non-company name mentioned bank. outside bench.

That broker provided her with $3,611 in commissions for her efforts via wire transfers.

Bains’ employer was “unaware that she was sending deals and files to another financial institution” or that she was receiving compensation for doing so, according to the consent order.

In addition to imposing a $35,000 administrative fine on Bains, the registrar ordered her to “immediately cease” acting as a mortgage broker or sub-mortgage broker unless she is registered to do so.