Rick Allenberg, a white sales rep with Fair Realty in Victoria, has filed a complaint with the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal alleging his black client broke a contract with him over race and country of origin.
Allenberg says he was born in South Africa but left the country and moved to Canada 25 years ago because he hated Apartheid and racial segregation. So, it completely angered him when his client, Dr. Roger Johnson, which tribunal documents show “identifies as a gay, multi-racial, black person”, decided to break his contract with Allenberg, in part because he suspects Allenberg “is a racist, white South African.”
Allenberg says, “Given that I left South Africa because of Apartheid, his comments felt like sandpaper being run up my back and were extremely offensive.”
But he says it wasn’t only because of the racial comments towards him that he filed the human rights complaint. Allenberg says he told Johnson in an email that if he wanted to cancel the contract, Johnson had to apologize for the racial comments and request their contract be cancelled.
It was only when he received Johnson’s next email reply, which included a derogatory comment highlighted in capital letters and boldface type, that Allenberg decided Johnson had gone too far.
“No one should have to take that kind of abuse,” says Allenberg. “All he had to do was send me an email saying that he was sorry, his comments were inappropriate and to please cancel the contract. When he responded with more offensive comments, that’s when I said to myself, ‘no more’ and realized that this wasn’t just an unfortunate set of circumstances.”
Allenberg says in early November 2013 he was called in by Johnson to see if he could help Johnson terminate the listing agreement for his high-end condo that he had with another agent. Allenberg says he attempted to negotiate a termination to the agreement, which was set to expire about 30 days later, but was unsuccessful because that agent had issues of their own with Johnson.
Johnson couldn’t list his property with another agent for the next 30 days and the agent who was holding Johnson for the duration of the existing contract couldn’t show it.
Realizing everything was at a stand-still until the current contract expired, Johnson entered into an agreement with Allenberg, which was to have Allenberg take over the listing once the agreement with the other agent expired.
Allenberg says the next day, after he and Johnson met in person and signed the contract, he received an email from Johnson saying he was cancelling their contract. When questioned, Allenberg says Johnson offered different reasons, including that Johnson had already promised the listing to another agent and that Allenberg was unethical to have signed a contract to take over his listing while there was already a contract with another agent in place.
When Allenberg pressed further, explaining there was nothing unethical going on and pointing out that he was called in by Johnson; Johnson said he couldn’t trust Allenberg because he was a white South African.
Allenberg says it was at this point that he reminded Johnson they had an enforceable contract in place, and that if Johnson wanted to cancel the contract, he couldn’t simply cancel it on his own – he had to apologize for the comments and ask Allenberg if he would agree to cancel the contract.
Johnson allegedly responded with another derogatory comment, so Allenberg filed the discrimination complaint with the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal.
Allenberg says after Johnson was notified of the complaint by the tribunal, he contacted Allenberg’s broker and complained that Allenberg was unprofessional and should be disciplined. The broker reportedly told Johnson there was nothing wrong with Allenberg’s conduct, so Johnson then filed a complaint with the Victoria Real Estate Board (VREB), which Allenberg says was dismissed without a hearing.
Citing privacy concerns, VREB did not want to provide a comment to REM.
Allenberg says the complaints against him by Johnson to the broker and VREB were vindictive and launched because of Allenberg’s original discrimination complaint to the tribunal. The B.C. Human Rights Code protects against such retaliatory action, so Allenberg filed a second complaint with the tribunal.
Allenberg has asked the tribunal to hear both of his claims at the same time and is waiting for a hearing date.
The tribunal rejected a request by Johnson to have the original discrimination complaint dismissed, saying, in part, “… the new application to dismiss is made under each and every ground contained in s. 27(1), the vast majority of which simply have no conceivable application. Such an approach raises at least an index of suspicion that the application was not framed seriously or may be intended to delay matters. I would also add that, even if the application had been brought only under s. 27(1)(b) or (c) of the Code, I would, considering the admissions contained in Mr. Johnson’s response to the complaint, have declined to exercise my discretion to dismiss it.”
REM’s attempts to reach Johnson for comment were unsuccessful.
Allenberg says throughout most of the process in the beginning, he had no intention of filing a complaint. It was only after Johnson continued to escalate the issue with racist comments, and a refusal to issue an apology and ask for Allenberg’s blessing to cancel the contract, that Allenberg decided it had gone too far.
“I’ve worked hard to get my name out there, build a brand and develop a solid reputation,” says Allenberg. “This is an attack on me, (and) on other Realtors and it just makes my blood boil.”
