Fresh off the sale of the Montreal premier’s mansion, a top Montreal realtor must now pay a $20,000 fine... after being caught cheating on training courses.
Joseph Montanaro pleaded guilty to breaching his industry’s ethics code in a disciplinary hearing for the Organisme d'autoréglementation du courtage immobilier du Québec (OACIQ), the body that governs real estate brokers in Quebec.
The well-known realtor has called Celine Dion and P.K. Subban clients.
OACIQ official Alexandra Tonghioiu filed a complaint that stated that Montanaro “allowed, permitted or requested a third party to take training courses in his place in order to complete his OACIQ continuing education program training program” between 2018 and 2019.
Under the Real Estate Brokerage Act, realtors are required to amass continuing credits to complete the Mandatory Continuing Education Program (MCEP) every two years in order to maintain their licence.
As CTV News Montreal reports, the complaint was inspired from “bad blood” within Montreal’s real estate industry and brought on by a competitor. Apparently, one of Montanaro’s ex-employees did the training on his behalf and claimed that the realtor authorized it, but Montanaro apparently doesn’t recall approving it.
The $20,000 fine agreed upon by Montanaro’s legal team and the OACIQ is believed to be one of the highest fines ever issued for realtors in Quebec.
The good news for Montanaro is that he just made a sizeable commission on the sale of Premier Legault’s 18-thousand-square-foot, eight-bedroom mansion. Furthermore, he just sold the most expensive home sale in Montreal this year, with the $8.5M sale of a penthouse unit in the Ritz-Carlton.
Was the whole training thing a stupid move? Of course. But we have a feeling he'll be just fine.
