A Calgary real estate firm is fighting a six-figure penalty after federal regulators found it repeatedly failed to meet anti–money laundering rules.Houston & Associates Realty Ltd., also known as HoustonRealty.ca, was hit with a $117,975 administrative monetary penalty on May 29 following a Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) compliance exam that uncovered five violations. The company has appealed the ruling to the Federal Court.According to FINTRAC, the brokerage relied on a generic policy template that didn’t reflect its business and routinely failed to follow its own rules, including basic record-keeping requirements. Regulators said the firm also failed to assess and document the risk of money laundering or terrorist financing, and admitted it had no proper risk assessment in place at all..FINTRAC further found the company did not create or maintain a training program for staff, nor did it conduct the mandatory review needed to test whether its compliance systems worked.The final violation involved missing information on all 10 “receipt of funds” records examined, with account numbers absent in every case.Four of the violations were deemed serious, while the record-keeping lapse was classified as minor. Regulators said the penalty reflects criteria laid out in federal legislation governing proceeds of crime and terrorist financing.The brokerage’s appeal remains before the court.
