San Jose Broker May Lose License Over Actions By Agent
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When the strings of a loosely run real estate practice unravel, the results can be very rough. Vision Quest 21, a San Jose based group of real estate offices, and their broker, Bic Pho, are facing fraud. These claims may cost the broker his license and has already cost him the franchises that he had with Century 21.
It is a lesson that oversight must be kept up at all times over all your agents. One such agent, Mark Dwelle, is accused of orchestrating a scheme where he misled lenders and acted as an agent to take out loans on multiple properties to defraud lenders.
While Pho may not have know the actions of his agent, he still bears the responsibility as broker and know his license may be in jeopardy. If you decide to run a brokerage, you need to have a person who specializes in complaince. I know that here is Georgia where there is an epidemic of mortgage fraud, many brokers are reviewing every sale just to make sure that they are not put at risk because something was done on the sly or overlooked.
A complaint by the California Department of Real Estate faults East San Jose broker Bic Pho for allegedly failing to properly supervise one of his agents and to monitor the actions of two companies he operated: Vision Quest 21, a real estate brokerage now in bankruptcy, and Mariposa Mortgage, which Pho headed until February…
The state also alleges that Vision Quest failed to keep three years’ worth of records and failed to produce canceled checks and other trust records when investigators asked for them. Until recently, Vision Quest operated several local real estate businesses, including Century 21 Su Casa, Century 21 Ruby, Aborn Prestige Homes and Estates, and Su Casa Realty. Vision Quest recently filed for bankruptcy, listing among its creditors 46 plaintiffs who have sued the company.
The company and its subsidiaries at one time had hundreds of agents, flourishing during the real estate boom of the past several years. In March, the Mercury News reported that the company had been hit with lawsuits by Latino home buyers accusing the company’s agents of falsifying loan applications, misleading them on the cost of subprime loans and failing to translate documents into Spanish for monolingual buyers. via the San Jose Mercury News
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Comment by Timmy on 23 August 2007:
So, has there any update to this story? I heard that a couple working for Su Casa was just convicted of fraud..
Thanks
Comment by Ney Montenegro on 14 November 2007:
With the market slow down, more and more brokers and agents are being sued and apparently the Century21 franchisees keep getting in trouble. Now there another big story where Century 21 Golden Hills is also being sued along with Norma Valdovinos (agent) in San Jose. The scheme was put together between mortgage brokers, insurance agents, private money lenders and Ms Valdovinos. This is my post:
http://micasamidinero.com/myhome/2007/fraud-century21-norma-valdovinos/
Comment by San Jose Real Estate Agent - Dan Pizano on 19 January 2009:
The 2008-09 slow real estate market should wash out the Real Estate people who were in it just for a quick buck and not practicing an ethical business. Buyers should always do their due dilligence by checking a Realtors background at CA DRE License Check before hiring them.
Comment by San Jose Condos - Danielle Contreras on 31 August 2009:
I had meet Mr. Pho a little while after this whole mess blew up. His thoughts were that he could not oversee all the agents in his aver two hundred agent office? This made me think that once an office gets to a certin size maybe the DRE should require an additional broker to be on staff. When thinking about using a reator meet with many of them before deciding on just one.