Two Realtors face license suspensions

A Charlotte broker-in-charge may face a two-year license suspension beginning in March if he does not complete two courses in real estate license law and commission rules, as well as an ethics course, according to a consent order issued by the North Carolina Real Estate Commission.

Ryan Daniel Cieslak obtained a license and established the Networth Investment LLC in April 2011. The commission charges that Cieslak was doing business in Charlotte as Asset Property Management, where he failed to supervise unlicensed employees engaging in property management. These employees performed a variety of duties including advertising rental properties, negotiating leases and collecting security deposits and rental payments.

The commission alleges that Cieslak did not oversee the company’s trust accounts, which were being maintained by unlicensed employees. In addition, Cieslak did not inform clients or the commission when the company ceased its involvement in property management. The unlicensed employees, however, continued to use the Asset Property Management name and provide services to the same clients when they formed a new firm.

Cieslak is currently on probation facing a stayed suspension of his license. The Better Business Bureau has assigned Asset Property Management an F based on billing and service complaints it has received. Additionally, the BBB says that Asset Property Management has failed to respond to inquiries the organization made regarding the complaints.

In a separate disciplinary action, the commission reprimanded Edward Kearns, a licensed broker with Kearns and Associates in Lexington, and issued a stayed suspension of his license. It is alleged that Kearns made offers on short-sale properties that required all subsequent offers on the property to be submitted to him without notifying the short-sale lender. When Kearns received subsequent offers, he did not notify the lender, according to the complaint.

Additionally, the commission said that Kearns gave clients bad advice, encouraging them to put properties in living trusts and assuring them that these transfers would not trigger the due-on-sale clause of the mortgage.

Kearns faces a three-month suspension of his license if he fails to complete one course on real estate ethics, two courses on short-sale transactions and one course on mortgage law.