The Real Estate Council of Ontario issued a public notice on Oct. 30 that REXIG Realty Investment Group Ltd. would be winding down.Evan Buhler/The Canadian Press
Ontario’s real estate regulator has frozen the bank accounts of Oakville, Ont.-based brokerage REXIG Realty Investment Group Ltd., the culmination of a string of legal and financial issues facing its principals.
According to records from a court-ordered receivership that began on Oct. 31., REXIG and two related companies – EFC Capital Inc. and Rexig Marketing Ltd. – have accumulated as much as $4.844-million in debt since 2018. The group has also been riven by a financial partnership dispute since September, 2024.
REXIG and its president and director, Pawel (Paul) Poliszot, are also facing questions from a lender about the unauthorized spending of $241,000 in loan money on Porsche vehicles. Separate civil claims from former business partners and brokerage employees allege hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid commissions.
On Oct. 30, the Real Estate Council of Ontario (RECO) issued a public notice that REXIG would be winding down (barring an appeal) and that it and Mr. Poliszot would be subject to a proposal to revoke their registrations, ending their ability to conduct business in real estate.
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Rexig Marketing, which employs 10 agents, remains open. RECO says the broker of record will oversee the remaining transactions and facilitate the transfer of agents and active listings to other brokerages.
The freezing of REXIG’s accounts follows similar actions against iPro Realty Ltd., at one time Ontario’s largest brokerage by number of realtors, until its collapse after money went missing from its trust accounts. But RECO said REXIG’s situation is different.
“There is no shortfall in the real estate trust account of the brokerage. Further, RECO did not discover any operational issues with the brokerage itself,” the regulator said in a statement. “In RECO’s view, the brokerage and its owner no longer meet the eligibility requirements for registration under Section 10 of the Trust in Real Estate Services Act, 2002.”
The relevant line in Section 10 relates to whether RECO’s registrar is satisfied that “the applicant can reasonably be expected to be financially responsible in the conduct of business.” The REXIG receivership puts that requirement in doubt.
On Oct. 21, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce filed to place KSV Consulting Inc. as the receiver of REXIG and the two related companies, saying those entities and the individuals named as guarantors had defaulted on a mix of mortgages and lines of credit that were secured by several units in the commercial condominium complex at 2390 Bristol Circle in Oakville. The commercial condo corporation is also seeking more than $72,160 in unpaid fees, according to CIBC’s filing.
Also named as debtors are Christopher Sarris, a realtor with Meta Realty Inc., and Sebastian Streker, a broker of record with Elyzium Realty Inc., both of whom – along with Mr. Poliszot – made a series of personal guarantees on debts accumulated by Rexig Marketing and EFC.
In response to questions about Mr. Sarris’s and Mr. Streker’s roles in the REXIG group’s debts, a RECO spokesperson said it was “continuing its assessment to determine any further appropriate steps under TRESA.”
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A day before CIBC filed for receivership, Mr. Streker filed a civil claim against REXIG and Mr. Poliszot seeking payment of $312,460 in commissions he said he was owed, based on deals consummated while he was working there, along with more than $400,000 in damages. The claim alleges Mr. Poliszot was “reckless, high-handed, callous” and “utilized those funds stolen, wrongfully appropriated and converted to purchase other unknown assets and have otherwise retained or otherwise have transferred the funds to other persons.”
In a separate claim, five other former REXIG realtors sought $127,463 in unpaid commissions, though according to the lawyer representing them and Mr. Streker – Jeffrey S. Klein, with Klein & Schonblum Associates – the smaller sum has been repaid by claims on RECO’s insurance program.
Mr. Poliszot declined to comment directly but released a statement through his lawyer, Saim Hashmi with DH Professional Corp., claiming that Mr. Streker was responsible for the partnership dispute, alleging: “Company funds were being mismanaged by this group and when Mr. Poliszot confronted them, they left the company, making it hard to maintain [a] going concern.”
None of the allegations of any of the former business partners has been tested in court.