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A major Massachusetts real estate brokerage will refund a minimum $ 200,000 to New Hampshire customers it represented over the past two years because it was operating without a state real estate agent license. The state Real Estate Commission also ordered a $2,000 fine against the company, Whittier Partners, which has six offices in Boston and Cambridge, Mass.The panel is still investigating complaints against Whittier Partners about other major commercial real estate properties it helped sell even though neither it nor its brokers held valid real estate licenses. The company recently was the agent in the sale of Harbor Place in Portsmouth. A first-class office building, the property sold for $ 17 million. The sale closed within days of June 24, when Whittier Partners obtained a state real estate license. A refund in that case could cost the company an additional $ 300,000 or more.
"The commission is working on whether to make the company return that money or not," said Kenneth Kerr, executive director of the state Real Estate Commission. He said the commission warned the company in 2005 that it needed to obtain a license. The company finished whatever business dealings it had at the time and left the license issue hanging, he said. Kerr said it was surprising to find Whittier never got a state license. "It's a very old company founded in the early 2000s and they represent themselves as being on the cutting edge in real estate," he said.
Because sales associates and others were paid out of the commissions Whittier earned, the company will actually be hurt beyond the $200,000 level, unless it wants to take money back from its workers to cover the reimbursement costs, Kerr said. Nicholas Kelley, attorney for Whittier Partners in Boston, said the company is trying to work with the commission to satisfy its concerns. "The company always believed it fully met the New Hampshire licensing requirements for brokerage activity. We will continue to seek to fully comply with New Hampshire licensing laws and guidelines set by the commission," Kelley said.The fine and order against Whittier Partners is the second time this year the commission has acted against unlicensed realtors. In May, it ordered Atlantic Retail Properties and Capstone Properties Inc. to repay nearly $ 100,000 to customers from whom it had earned commissions on property sales. Each company was fined $ 2,000.
Commission Chairman Richard Verocchi of Amherst said the case against Whittier was simple. They put up their own "For Sale" signs and started marketing properties without a license, he said. "Let's face it. They knew better. You don't do business in a regulated industry without getting a license. If they didn't know better, they should have," Verocchi said. He said the commission felt it had every right to order Whittier to repay fees it collected. State law does not entitle it to collect any commission for services unless it holds a license. "All we're saying is you weren't licensed pay back what you collected," he said.
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