Raptis Real Estate: Adelaide-based firm convicted, fined $15,000 for unlicensed practice in NT
An Adelaide-based real estate agency continued managing rentals and listing properties for a year after being warned its licence to practice in the NT had lapsed.
Police & Courts
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An Adelaide-based real estate agency continued managing rentals and listing properties for a year after being warned its licence to practice in the Northern Territory had lapsed, a court has heard.
Raptis Nominees Pty Ltd, which trades as Raptis Real Estate, pleaded guilty in the Darwin Local Court to a charge of operating an unlicensed real estate business.
It’s understood to be one of the first times, if not the first time, such a charge has come before the courts in the Territory.
The court heard the defendant company, which is owned and directed by real estate agent Christos Raptis, the stepson of former South Australian Liberal opposition leader Martin Hamilton-Smith, traded unlicensed between September 2022 and November last year.
Mr Raptis is not charged personally with any offending.
The company, which began operating in the Territory in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, was contacted by Occupational Licensing a month before the expiry of its licence about the impending renewal, but no response was received, the court heard.
Multiple follow up emails ensued, before the company asked on October 4, 2022, why it couldn’t pay for its renewal online.
Occupational Licensing said as the licence had not been renewed, it had been cancelled and would need to be lodged anew.
Despite this clear advice, Raptis Real Estate did not lodge a new application and continued to manage rentals and list properties for more than a year afterwards.
Defence lawyer Mary Chalmers SC told the court her client had fallen victim to red tape and naivety about the laws of a jurisdiction he was less familiar with.
She said her client applied for real estate licences in six different jurisdictions after Covid-19 hit in a bid to expand his practice.
It was “dealing with different regimes, business licenses, personal licenses, different dates, different requirements,” Ms Chalmers said, and it was in this context her client “ran into a bureaucratic brick wall”.
She further noted Mr Raptis himself held the licence he was required to in the NT at all relevant times.
The totality of the business Raptis Real Estate conducted while unlicensed was “extremely modest,” consisting of six rentals and a couple of Katherine properties that didn’t sell, Ms Chalmers said.
She submitted her client, who had no prior offending, should escape without a conviction, as the recording of one would place the licences he held in other jurisdictions at risk due to the character test, but Judge Alan Woodcock disagreed.
He said although he had “some sympathy” for the defendant, the company had deliberately, not inadvertently, failed to comply with the regulatory regime.
He fined the defendant $15,000 and recorded a conviction.
To rub salt into the wound, the Agents Licencing Board of the NT recently knocked back Mr Raptis’ reapplication for a personal licence to continue operating locally, finding that in addition to his company operating without its necessary licence, Mr Raptis had “conduct issues” relating to his alleged treatment of two tenants.
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