A Langley condo developer who was extradited to California over fraud charges almost six years ago is now facing a hearing and possible sanctions from the BC Financial Services Authority (BCFSA).
A hearing about the activities of Mark Chandler related to a local condo project have been scheduled for Monday, Sept. 15 to Friday, Sept. 26 in Vancouver.
The BCFSA regulates realtors and property developers, and in 2017 it issued an order that Chandler cease marketing activities for Murrayville House, a four-storey condo project near Langley Memorial Hospital.
The project was behind schedule and deeply in debt, and pre-sale buyers were worried about their investments. By 2017, the project owed $62 million to various creditors, more than double the estimated value of the completed building.
The project was put into receivership and a court-appointed trustee found that the 91 units had been "sold" 149 times. A total of 31 units were sold twice, 12 three times, and one unit was sold four times.
At the time, lawyers for Chandler characterized these pre-sales as loans. None of the allegations in the BCFSA Notice of Hearing has been proven.
The BCFSA reported Chandler's activities to the police, but no criminal charges were ever laid in Canada. The BCFSA also issued a notice of hearing to Chandler, but that hearing never happened, because Chandler was jailed in California for the last several years, due to an unrelated fraud he committed there.
Between 2009 and 2011, Chandler was involved in a purported effort to develop a property on Hill Street in Los Angeles into condos, which led to an FBI investigation and charges.
After his attempts to appeal his extradition from Canada ran out in 2019, Chandler was sent to the United States, where he pleaded guilty to a single charge of wire fraud and was sentenced to six years behind bars and $1.7 million in restitution to his victims.
Judge Percy Anderson said Chandler had perpetrated a "fraudulent scheme that caused considerable losses to a significant number of victims."
It was not Chandler's first criminal conviction in the U.S. He had previously been charged with 13 offences in Arizona in 2000, pleading guilty to a single count of theft, and during his California scheme, he was on probation for spousal battery and unlawful entry in that state.
Chandler was scheduled to be released from prison earlier this year. As he has both British and Canadian citizenship, it was expected he would be deported back to one of those countries.
Individuals who have been found to have violated the Real Estate Development Marketing Act can face personal penalties of up to $1.25 million and up to two years in prison on a first offence, and $2.5 million and two years in prison for subsequent breaches.
Between 2015 and his extradition in 2019, Chandler owned or controlled multiple properties around Langley as well as a defunct golf course near Merritt. Many of the properties, as well as his personal homes, were targeted in lawsuits by creditors. Some of the properties have since been developed by other owners.
