The Metro Vancouver Realtor who was the subject of an “order in urgent circumstances” suspending her licence last month has won at least a temporary reprieve. The B.C. Financial Services Authority confirmed to CTV News Friday that the panel chair of the province’s Financial Services Tribunal had granted an “interim stay” of its order against Rimpy Hothi and her personal real estate corporation. The stay will be in place until Hothi’s main application for a stay of the urgent order can be heard, the BCFSA said. “BCFSA cannot provide further comment as it is in a temporary caretaker mode as a result of the provincial election and communications are limited to critical health and public safety information,” the agency said in an email. It referred further questions to the tribunal. CTV News has reached out to that body for more information, and this story will be updated if a response is received. The BCFSA issued its order against Hothi and her PREC on Sept. 4. The order does not specify what conduct by Hothi and her company necessitated it, in the eyes of the regulator. The document says only that “there has been conduct” by Hothi and her company that justifies such an order, and that “the length of time required to complete an investigation or hold a discipline hearing, or both, would be detrimental to the public interest.” On Sept. 11, a week after the order was issued, Hothi posted a statement on her Facebook page along with a video from her lawyer Jeffrey Scouten. In the video, Scouten says the BCFSA suspended Hothi’s licence “without any advance notice or chance for her to respond.” “The order is provisional, meaning it makes no final findings, and Rimpy disputes a lot of what’s alleged, and she flatly denies the most serious parts of it,” Scouten says in the video. He does not say what the allegations are or which parts his client disputes or denies. He does mention, however, that he and his client had filed “an urgent appeal” to the BCFST asking “to stay the order so Rimpy can keep working while this gets decided properly.” The interim stay referenced by the BCFSA is not the tribunal’s final decision on whether to stay the urgent order suspending Hothi’s licence. The underlying allegations against Hothi—whatever they are—have not been proven. Hothi was the subject of a notice of administrative penalty from the BCFSA in January 2025. That notice ordered her to pay $4,000 for four violations of the Real Estate Services Act’s rules related to marketing. Those violations included failing to name her brokerage, her personal real estate corporation and her team name on her Instagram, Linktree, YouTube, TikTok, and X accounts, according to the document. She also “published misleading real estate advertising” by using the phrases “Top 1% Realtor” or “Top 1% in Greater Vancouver” on those social media accounts “without any explanatory statements or rationale,” the notice indicates.
