Former iPro Realty brokers due outstanding commission payments have won their battle to revise controversial language in settlement agreements offered by the Real Estate Council of Ontario’s insurance provider.

The newly revised agreement removes suggestions that the brokers’ acceptance of accelerated partial commission payments could prevent them from receiving additional payments. The realtors were worried that the original agreement contained clauses that indicated they had accepted payment in full, depriving them of the total.

The revised agreement also contains additional protections for consumers, ensuring that they will get funds held in trust.

RECO announced the changes in a news release last week and update an online document explaining how realtors and consumers can make claims and receive funds.

“RECO has received feedback from iPro claimants regarding the complexity of the insurance release forms and we have shared this feedback with the insurer [Alternative Risk Services],” said the regulator.

“We are pleased to report that the insurer has simplified the release form for clarity and ease of understanding.”

The revised agreement’s language also removes a non-disclosure clause. Brokers had complained that the clause would muzzle their concerns about RECO.

“I don’t think that there’s any expectation of silence,” Jean Lépine, the provincially appointed administrator now heading RECO, told The Globe and Mail when asked whether a non-disclosure clause was appropriate. “I think there’s a full expectation that we’re going to work together with the sector to try to achieve a result that people can be heard and feel respected and also get back to work.”

Realtors had refuted insurance experts’ concerns that the non-disclosure clauses were standard in such settlements.

Nayaki Penumarthy, one of 2,400 former iPro realtors, previously told the Globe that most of the company’s former brokers were refusing to sign the proposed agreements

The squabble came after Jean Lépine pledged in a statement last week that the insurance provider would speed up the repayment schedule and begin offering up to 50% repayment of insured commission claims within weeks instead of months, as had previously been announced.

Alternative Risk Services had stated that signing the documents wouldn’t prevent realtors from receiving future payment.

But Alan Silverstein, a lawyer who was a founding board member of RECO and helped set up its insurance program, told the Globe that the agreements, from a legal perspective, did not offer the prospect of any more money.

Lépine told the Globe that between $28 million and $30 million in claims have been made, the largest insurance invent in RECO’s history. The eligible consumer and broker claims have already exceeded the $4-million-per-incident insurance cap, according to the Globe.

Alternate Risk Services previously stated that the total claims related to iPro will exceed $30 million, and more than 1,000 of 2,000 commission claims have been processed, the Globe reported.

The squabble comes after Brenda Buchanan, the regulator’s CEO, resigned effective December 31. Lépine has succeeded Buchanan as CEO.

The Ontario government fired RECO’s entire eight member board in late November and Lépine began his work as the organization’s administrator December 1.

He is tasked with rebuilding the real estate industry and public’s trust following the iPro scandal and heavy criticism that RECO’s former board and Buchanan have received.

RECO closed iPro months after finding that about $10.5 million had been withdrawn, allegedly illegally, from the former trust accounts. The company later paid back $3 million and co-founders Rui Alves, who is a former RECO board member, and Fede Colucci agreed never to apply to certify a brokerage again or serve as brokers. As a result, they were not fined or charged.

Premier Doug Ford has vowed that realtors will get “every penny” that they are owed.

“We’re working through the process with the tools available to us,” Lépine told the Globe. “There is no distance between the commitments the premier’s made and where we’re trying to get to as an organization. There’s a perfect bridge, in fact, between what he said and where we’re headed.”

But Alternative Risk Services previously warned that there will not be enough money to pay all realtors the amounts due.

Lépine is a communications and government relations strategist. He told the Globe that he is trying make something “very positive” out of a “challenging situation.”

He did not rule out more personnel changes at RECO.

“I’m gonna assess and I have been assessing from the day that I arrived,” he told the Globe. “I’m just a bit early in the process there to be honest with you.

“I’m gonna assess and I have been assessing from the day that I arrived. I’m just a bit early in the process there to be honest with you,” he said.

Lépine vowed that he and RECO will live up to their promises of improving the regulator’s operations.

“We’re not just saying things, we’re actually doing things to try to make this better,” he told his Globe interviewer. “I do have some strong opinions about good governance and focusing on delivering against promises that you make. That was a lesson I learned early in politics: Don’t make a promise if you can’t keep it.”

Photo: iPro