Ending your property licence
Your licence or registration certificate may end for a number of reasons, such as:
- it expires and you don’t renew it
- you choose to surrender the licence
- we cancel or suspend the licence.
You may not transfer your licence or registration to another person for any reason.
Surrendered licence or registration
You must contact us in writing to surrender your licence or registration. You will need to:
- immediately return your licence or registration certificate to us
- finalise and close any trust accounts
- notify us when your trust accounts are closed
- give us a final audit of each trust account within 2 months of closing it.
The licence or registration will be invalid from the day you surrender it.
You may only submit your notice:
Cancelled licence or registration
We will immediately cancel your licence if you:
- are convicted of a serious offence
- become bankrupt or insolvent (as an individual)
- are wound up or struck off (as a corporation).
We will immediately cancel your registration if you:
- are convicted of a serious offence
A serious offence is anything punishable by 3 or more years in prison. These include:
- violent offences (including threats to use violence)
- fraud and dishonesty
- drug trafficking
- extortion
- arson
- unlawful stalking, intimidation, harassment or abuse
- any offence of a sexual nature.
If we cancel your licence or registration, you must stop trading immediately. You will have 14 days to return your licence.
Suspended licence or registration
We may suspend your licence if:
- we consider the licence was obtained because of materially incorrect or misleading information
- we suspect an irregularity with your trust account
- you are an employee and may be responsible for an irregularity or deficiency in the licensee’s trust account
- you have failed to file an audit report
- a receiver is appointed over your property
- you breach or we believe you have breached the Property Occupations Act 2014, the Agents Financial Administration Act 2014 or the Property Agents and Motor Dealers Act 2000.
We can suspend a licence for up to 28 days. We will notify you within 14 days of the start of your suspension. However, if the suspension is in relation to failure to lodge an audit report, the licence may be suspended until you file the relevant audit report.
You must stop trading immediately. You will have 14 days to return your licence.
We can suspend your registration if:
- we consider the registration certificate was obtained because of materially incorrect or misleading information
- a licensee’s trust account is irregular or deficient, and you may be responsible
- you breach or we believe you have breached the Property Occupations Act 2014 or the Property Agents and Motor Dealers Act 2000.
We can suspend a registration certificate for up to 28 days. We will notify you within 14 days of the start of your suspension.
Once you get our notification, you will have 14 days to return your registration document. You must cease trading immediately.