Three British Columbia real estate professionals have been ordered to pay more than $126,000 in combined penalties and enforcement expenses following a complex regulatory investigation. The disciplinary action stems from a contentious 2023 property transaction where two business partners dissolved their real estate team mid-sale, subsequently representing opposite sides of the same residential deal without proper disclosures or conflict-of-interest agreements.
The British Columbia Financial Services Authority (BCFSA) announced the disciplinary outcomes on October 21 against agents Ashley Doherty-Tullis and Tyler Willis, alongside managing broker Brenda Crawford. All three licensees were associated with Royal LePage Princeton Realty at the time of the events, which unfolded across the Similkameen region and involved a retired couple looking to relocate.
According to the regulatory findings, Willis and Doherty-Tullis had originally acted as joint listing agents for the property, granting them comprehensive access to confidential seller information, pricing strategy, and the personal motivations of their clients. However, the professional dynamics shifted dramatically when a prospective buyer emerged, leading to a series of regulatory breaches regarding agency duties, conflict management, and client confidentiality.
The comprehensive consent orders detail a sequence of events that ultimately cost the licensees heavily in financial penalties, commission disgorsements, mandatory remedial education, and potential license revocations.
Real estate team dissolves before sale
The controversy centres on a 2023 property sale in Tulameen, a scenic, unincorporated community nestled in the Similkameen region of south-central British Columbia.
At the time, Doherty-Tullis and Willis co-owned Royal LePage Princeton Realty and operated under the business name of the Willis Tullis Team, with Brenda Crawford acting as the designated managing broker overseeing their operations. In August 2023, the two agents were jointly retained by a retired couple to list their residential property. The homeowners were planning a lifestyle change, aiming to relocate to the Okanagan region to live closer to family members.
The property debuted on the market with an initial asking price of $940,000. As months passed without an immediate sale, the price was subsequently reduced twice, bringing the listing down to $899,000 in an effort to attract serious interest.
The turning point occurred on October 2 of that year, when prospective buyers reached out directly to Doherty-Tullis to inquire about viewing the home. The prospective purchasers were a young family searching for a recreational property in Tulameen. Notably, they shared a mutual acquaintance with Doherty-Tullis and recognized both her name and Tyler Willis’s name on the property’s marketing materials.
The very next day, Doherty-Tullis submitted an official application to deregister their real estate team, a request that the BCFSA formally approved a few days later on October 6.
After showing the home to the prospective buyers, Doherty-Tullis actively recommended that they retain Willis to represent them in the purchase. In text message communications uncovered during the regulatory investigation, Doherty-Tullis told the buyers, “I can get my business partner Tyler Willis to contact you.”
To accommodate this arrangement, she approached the elderly sellers and asked them to sign a formal listing agreement amendment. This document removed Willis from the listing contract, allowing him to legally cross the aisle and represent the buyers, while Doherty-Tullis maintained her position representing the sellers.
In a text message sent to the sellers—which was later reproduced in the BCFSA consent orders—Doherty-Tullis framed the administrative change positively, writing, “To better serve our clients we have deregistered our team and will work together still when we can!”
However, the regulatory authority concluded that this messaging was misleading. BCFSA found that Doherty-Tullis failed to clearly and fully explain the severe legal and fiduciary consequences of the arrangement to her clients. Specifically, she neglected to inform them that Willis would now owe his undivided legal loyalty and fiduciary duties exclusively to the buyers, rather than the sellers—despite having previously possessed insider knowledge regarding the sellers’ bottom line, urgency, and confidential motivations.
Furthermore, the regulator determined that Doherty-Tullis breached client confidentiality by disclosing to the buyers that the property had not received any competing offers since it was initially listed in August.
Sellers “shocked” by low offer
The structural conflict quickly manifested in the negotiations. The prospective buyers initially submitted an opening offer of $725,000, a figure significantly lower than the asking price.
According to the regulatory findings, the sellers had previously communicated to Doherty-Tullis that they would be willing to consider offers of $850,000 or higher. Compounding the pressure on the sellers was the fact that they had already secured an accepted offer on another property in Peachland, B.C., which was legally conditional upon the successful sale of their Tulameen home.
Following a tense series of counteroffers between the two sides, the parties ultimately settled on a compromise purchase price of $800,000.
During the back-and-forth negotiations, text message records showed the buyers telling Willis that they intended to counter at $800,000. Willis replied to his new clients, “I’m guessing that will be too low but I will send to you for sigs?”
The buyers responded with casual optimism, writing, “Worth a shot as they’ve had no offers since it’s been listed in August, we will wait to get the contract for signatures!!”
When the initial low offer was presented, the sellers told BCFSA investigators that they were completely shocked. They began questioning whether the buyers had somehow gained access to privileged information or insider details regarding their listing status and desperation to sell that they should never have known.
Conversely, when interviewed by investigators, the buyers stated that they had been entirely unaware of Willis’s prior professional relationship with the sellers or his historic connection to the property listing.
Willis later admitted during the regulatory process that he had failed to disclose his previous relationship with the sellers to the buyers. Moreover, both agents failed to obtain the mandatory written conflict-of-interest disclosure agreements required under B.C. real estate rules when an agent transitions from representing a seller to representing a buyer in the same transaction.
The BCFSA consent orders did not establish definitive proof that Willis explicitly leaked confidential seller information to the buyers, but the structural conflict and lack of disclosure were deemed severe violations of professional ethics.
Commission arrangement detailed
The financial entanglement of the transaction was laid bare in the consent orders, which detailed how the commission was ultimately split between the two former partners.
Records showed that Willis had agreed to pay a 25 per cent referral fee out of his earned commission back to Doherty-Tullis. When the property transaction finally closed in November 2023, Doherty-Tullis collected $12,015 from her listing commission side, alongside an additional $3,003.75 kickback from the buyer-side commission. Willis walked away with the remaining $9,011.25 portion of the commission.
As part of their stringent disciplinary penalties, that exact $9,011.25 commission sum received by Willis was ordered to be disgorged and included directly in his monetary penalty.
In total, Ashley Doherty-Tullis received the heaviest financial sanction of the three licensees, ordered to pay a disciplinary penalty of $70,769.68, plus an additional $2,475 in enforcement expenses. Tyler Willis was ordered to pay a $40,000 disciplinary penalty, the $9,011.25 commission disgorgement, and $2,300 in enforcement expenses. Both agents were also mandated to complete remedial educational courses at their own personal expense.
Managing broker also disciplined
The regulatory reach extended upward to the brokerage’s leadership, holding the managing broker accountable for failing to supervise the transaction properly.
Brenda Crawford admitted to investigators that it was a significant error in judgment to permit Willis to represent the buyers in the transaction without ensuring that the necessary conflict-of-interest disclosure forms had been formally executed by all parties involved.
In her individual consent order, Crawford acknowledged that a formal conflict of interest form should have been signed and approved before Willis ever drafted or submitted the buyers’ initial offer on the property.
As part of her disciplinary settlement, Crawford was ordered to pay $1,500 in enforcement expenses. Additionally, she was instructed to successfully complete the Broker’s Business Planning and Financial Management Licensing Course through the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business. She was given a strict four-month deadline to finish the course, failure of which would result in the immediate cancellation of her managing broker license.
The BCFSA initially received the consumer complaint regarding the Tulameen property transaction in October 2023. Following a prolonged investigation, the three formal consent orders were successfully finalized and published between September and October 2026.