A RECO discipline decision is the outcome of a hearing before RECO's Discipline Committee against a registrant or brokerage for an alleged contravention of TRESA or its regulations — and it is only one of several separate penalty regimes a registrant's conduct can trigger, not a one-size-fits-all outcome.
A complaint usually starts at the brokerage. RECO's Information Guide tells a consumer to “search for the brokerage in RECO's Public Register to find the name of the broker of record” and states plainly that “the brokerage cannot ask you to sign an agreement that requires you to withdraw a complaint to RECO or prevents you from making one.” Short of a full hearing, RECO can require additional education “where the evidence suggests gaps in the knowledge of the real estate agent,” issue a written warning that “remains on the file… permanently,” or order corrective action such as pulling a non-compliant ad.
A formal Discipline Committee decision goes further: it can “impose a fine of up to $50,000 for agents and up to $100,000 for brokerages,” impose costs, add conditions to a registration, or “suspend or, in rare cases, revoke a registration.” A separate track, provincial-offence prosecution, carries its own figures: individuals face “fines of up to $50,000 and/or prison terms of up to two years,” and corporations face fines of up to $250,000. Neither track substitutes for the other, and neither substitutes for the federal regimes that can apply to the same conduct — a Competition Act summary conviction caps out at $200,000, a FINTRAC administrative monetary penalty is its own separate instrument again. Each regime is enforced on its own terms.
An agent runs the unsupported “#1 agent” ad from the deceptive-marketing example above. A first-time complaint might resolve as corrective action — pull the ad, no fine. A pattern of repeated, uncorrected violations is what moves a file to a full Discipline Committee hearing, where the Committee can reach as high as $50,000 against the individual agent. If the same ad also drew a Competition Bureau referral, that federal process runs on its own track, with its own maximum penalty, entirely independent of whatever RECO decides.
See also: Code of Ethics, Deceptive marketing practice, the full glossary.
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