ERA Realty Network issued letter of censure after multiple complaints against property agent
The Council for Estate Agencies said that ERA had committed three breaches under the Code of Practice for Estate Agents.
by Firdaus Hamzah · CNA · JoinRead a summary of this article on FAST.
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SINGAPORE: ERA Realty Network (ERA) has been issued a letter of censure by the Council for Estate Agencies (CEA) for failing to manage and supervise a property agent after multiple complaints against him.
Abel Ang Pei Xiong had been fined and suspended for five months - from October 2023 to March 2024 - for publishing property advertisements containing inaccurate and misleading information, according to CEA.
After the suspension ended, CEA continued to receive complaints about him over advertisements with inaccurate property pricing.
Detailing why the letter of censure was issued, the council said in an article on its website on Thursday (Jan 8) that ERA had committed three breaches under the Code of Practice for Estate Agents.
According to the council, ERA had failed to manage and supervise its real estate agent to "ensure that he did not post advertisements that contained misleading or inaccurate information".
It did not have "proper systems and processes" to manage and supervise its suspended real estate agent.
ERA also failed to recover the estate agent card from the suspended personnel, said the council.
A letter of censure is issued for disciplinary breaches that are assessed to be less serious.
If a breach is deemed serious, the matter will generally be referred to the council's disciplinary committee.
Some considerations taken to assess whether a breach is less serious are when it has resulted in low or no financial loss for parties involved in transactions; the estate agency or salesperson had no or low wrongful gain; and when the people involved were not dishonest.
Additionally, ERA was issued composition notices for associating with three suspended real estate agents when they were not registered.
This is the first time a real estate agency among the top five in terms of headcount has been censured.
FIRST BREACH
Mr Ang's suspension from October 2023 to March 2024 arose after CEA received multiple complaints against him for posting advertisements that contained inaccurate pricing and misleading or inaccurate information on the property listed, the council said on its website.
CEA added that it approached ERA’s key executive officer in March 2022 to advise that ERA should "vet Ang’s advertisement listings for accuracy before they were posted, as ERA had a responsibility to do so" under the estate agents' code of practice.
However, the council noted that it continued to receive complaints and found more advertisements posted by Mr Ang that contained inaccurate property pricing, even after Mr Ang’s suspension ended in March 2024.
He was subsequently referred to a disciplinary committee again and was fined S$28,000 and suspended for six months in October 2025, according to CEA.
"Due to the numerous instances of inaccurate and misleading advertisements by Mr Ang, and the fact that breaches continued to occur after CEA’s advisory to ERA’s key executive officer, it was clear that ERA failed to carry out its responsibility under COPEA (Code of Practice for Estate Agents)," the council added.
SECOND BREACH
Mr Ang - along with two other suspended ERA real estate salespersons - was found to still have an active profile on ERA's portal during his suspension period in January 2024.
CEA said that the estate agency's lapses arose as it failed to implement proper systems and processes to manage and supervise its suspended personnel.
It cited an example where there were no processes in place to ensure the removal of the profiles of suspended staff from its portal during their suspension period.
THIRD BREACH
The third breach saw ERA failing to recover Mr Ang's estate agency card from him.
Following Mr Ang’s suspension, which began in October 2023, he was required to return his card to ERA, but did not do so.
ERA did not follow up with him after initially notifying him to do so.
The card was only returned to ERA in February 2024 after the council alerted ERA.
ERA did not have a system in place at that time to track whether suspended staff returned their cards, and there was no standard process in place to deal with those who failed to do so, CEA said.
In response to CNA’s queries, ERA said the issues CEA identified related to “process enhancements in the management and supervision of suspended salespersons, rather than to consumer harm”.
“Once these matters were brought to our attention, we acted promptly to rectify them,” said ERA key executive officer Eugene Lim.
He said the real estate agency has since reviewed and enhanced its systems to strengthen oversight, improve compliance tracking and reinforce follow-up and enforcement measures.
He also acknowledged that ERA could have done better and taken responsibility for addressing the gaps that led to its breaches.
“We view this as an important learning point - not just for ERA, but for the wider industry - and hope it contributes to stronger supervisory practices across agencies,” he said.
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