The agency that regulates mortgage brokers in B.C. says discipline proceedings are completed or ongoing for nearly two dozen people who used the services of unregistered mortgage broker Jay Kanth Chaudhary.
The BC Financial Services Authority has been pursuing cases against real estate agents and mortgage brokers who worked with Chaudhary for several years.
This week, it published consent orders with four real estate licensees and one mortgage broker in connection with the investigation.
The agency says it has investigated “more than 25” people “who allegedly participated in, benefitted from, and helped to facilitate Chaudhary’s activities.”
“Real estate licensees involved with Chaudhary are alleged to have referred their clients to his noncompliant services and/or to have used his services in their own mortgage applications and misrepresented their income and savings information,” the BCFSA said in a “fact sheet” about the case published Thursday.
“Mortgage broker registrants are alleged to have submitted applications to lenders on behalf of Chaudhary and at his direction while Chaudhary was not registered as a mortgage broker.”
A total of 23 people have been “charged” in connection to the investigation, according to the BCFSA. Fifteen of the cases have been concluded, most of them through consent orders. Eight real estate licensees and one mortgage broker are awaiting hearings, the agency said.
More than $500 million in mortgages
In 2019, the provincial registrar of mortgage brokers – which has since been made a part of the BCFSA – issued an urgent cease and desist order against Chaudhary.
That document, which remains available online, indicates that Chaudhary was involved in a total of 875 files between 2009 and mid-2018, arranging more than half a billion dollars in mortgages and generating nearly $6 million in client fees and referral fees for himself in the process.
While Chaudhary was a registered mortgage broker from April 25, 2007, through Dec. 21, 2007, and again from Jan. 4, 2008, through Oct. 20, 2008, his registration was suspended for 120 days beginning in late 2008 for “conducting business in a manner that was prejudicial to the public interest,” according to the fact sheet.
“Chaudhary did not renew his registration at the completion of his suspension,” the BCFSA said, adding that he continued to carry on business for nearly a decade using a “complex scheme.”
After issuing the cease and desist order in 2019, the agency turned its investigatory efforts to unravelling what it called Chaudhary’s “extensive web of unregistered mortgage broker activity.”
Penalties and licence suspensions
The five consent orders related to the Chaudhary investigation that the BCFSA published on its website this week were with Afsaneh Zarshenas, Molenia Golshani, Homayoun (Sam) Harji Karimloo, Sayna Sadat Mirzadeh and Shane Ballard.
Zarshenas, a real estate trading services representative, agreed to pay a $50,000 disciplinary penalty, plus enforcement expenses. She must complete a remedial education course to become licensed again.
Golshani, also a trading services representative, agreed to have her licence cancelled and pay a $75,000 discipline penalty, plus enforcement expenses.
Those penalties are the same as the ones agreed to by Karimloo – who was also a trading services representative – in his consent order.
Mirzadeh agreed to a cancellation of her licence to perform real estate trading services, but her consent order does not include any discipline penalties, only enforcement expenses.
Ballard was registered as a submortgage broker, but is currently unregistered, according to his consent order, in which he agreed to pay a discipline penalty of $50,000, plus enforcement expenses. Ballard also agreed that he is not eligible to reapply for registration as either a mortgage broker or submortgage broker, and will never do so.
The BCFSA’s fact sheet and news release on the Chaudhary investigation also lists several other discipline files related to the case, some of which CTV News has covered in the past.
At the time of that previous coverage, the documents related to the files were redacted to remove Chaudhary’s name before publication.
Former Realtor Rashin Rohani surrendered her licence in December 2023, but the BCFSA’s chief hearing officer Andrew Pendray nevertheless ordered it cancelled in a sanctions decision published last June. Pendray also ordered her to pay a total of $130,000 in discipline penalties and enforcement expenses related to her misconduct.
Rohani has appealed the decision to B.C.‘s Financial Services Tribunal.
CTV News also previously covered the cases of real estate agent Jin Luo and his personal real estate corporation, as well as unregistered mortgage broker Sarbjit Bains.
Luo and his company agreed in a consent order to have their licences cancelled and pay $5,000 in enforcement expenses in October 2024.
Bains, meanwhile, signed a consent order in November 2024 in which she agreed to pay a $35,000 administrative penalty and “immediately cease” acting as a mortgage broker or submortgage broker unless she becomes registered to do so.
- Read more: B.C. woman who ‘carried on’ as mortgage broker, sent falsified documents ordered to pay $35K
Several other consent orders related to the Chaudhary investigation are listed and linked in the BCFSA’s fact sheet. Those not already mentioned in this article are linked below.
