Real estate agent’s representative Zoran Rakocevic has been found ineligible to be an agent’s representative for five years and to hold an estate agent’s licence for that period , after the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) found him guilty of offences including creating false deposit receipts.
Mr Rakocevic created false receipts for the sale of four properties, stating that Compton and Green Real Estate Pty Ltd (where he was employed as an agent’s representative) had received a deposit on each, when it had not.
VCAT also upheld Consumer Affairs Victoria’s allegations that Mr Rakocevic made false statements:
- in contracts of sale in relation to six properties, incorrectly stating that C&G was the vendor’s agent when C&G was not the vendor’s agent
- in three contracts of sale stating that the vendor had agreed to sell the property described in the contract when the vendor had not so agreed.
VCAT made orders, under the Estate Agents Act 1980, that Mr Rakocevic:
- was not of good character and is not otherwise a fit and proper person to be an agent’s representative
- has been guilty of conduct as an agent’s representative which makes him unfit to be an agent’s representative
- contravened or failed to comply with the Estate Agents (Professional Conduct) Regulations 2008.
The tribunal ordered that Mr Rakocevic was ineligible to hold a licence or to be an agent’s representative for five years from 5 September 2012.
In her finding, VCAT senior member Jacqueline Preuss described Mr Rakocevic’s conduct as ‘deliberate, calculated and carried out over a number of months’.
Ms Preuss found that Mr Rakocevic benefitted from his offences because, in three of the transactions involving false deposit receipts and contracts of sale, the company of which he was sole director and shareholder, Montex Corporation Pty Ltd, received $156,419.99.
‘Mr Rakocevic’s behaviour was compounded by the fact that he exhibited an unwillingness to admit indisputable facts such as receipt by him of a financial benefit from the transactions. In my view, this indicated a disregard for his duty of honesty and candour’, she said.