ASIC bans DG Institute CEO Dominique Grubisa from practising for four years

A woman who described herself as one of Australia’s ‘leading property educators’ has been banned from practising for four years with the corporate regulator describing her as untruthful.

Dominique Grubisa, the Sydney-based chief executive and director of DG Institute Pty Ltd, had appeared in wealth management seminars with the likes of Sunrise host David Koch spruiking her expertise on making money. 

She had urged those appearing at her seminars to go through court papers to find distressed people who had been forced to sell their property to get a bargain, rather than looking at real estate advertisements.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has now banned her from providing financial services or controlling any finance services business for four years.

ASIC, the corporate regulator, found she had lied about holding Australian financial services and credit licences when neither she nor DGI Wealth did, and described her as someone who ‘has a habit of not telling the truth’.

Mrs Grubisa, a controversial lawyer with a background in debt cases, had also falsely claimed to be an ‘ASIC licensed debt specialist’ when she wasn’t. 

The corporate regulator suggested she would continue lying about her credentials.

‘ASIC also found that Ms Grubisa is not a fit and proper person to engage in financial services or credit activities and is likely to continue to contravene financial services and credit law,’ it said on Tuesday.

Mrs Grubisa still has a website describing herself as ‘one of Australia’s leading property educators, authors and speakers’.  

She hailed herself as someone would could ‘let people like you know that they can achieve their dreams and live the life they want’.

Mrs Grubisa, who rebuilt her property empire after being forced to sell 15 of her investment properties in 2008 during the Global Financial Crisis, had run seminars advising potential investors to snap up homes where the owners have been forced to sell.

She promoted a strategy based on avoiding real estate advertisements and searching through court lists to find borrowers who have been forced to sell for failing to keep up with mortgage repayments, because of bankruptcy, unemployment or a divorce.

The Sydney-based chief executive and director of DG Institute Pty Ltd, had appeared in wealth management seminars with the likes of Sunrise host David Koch (right) spruiking her expertise on finance

ASIC noted she had ‘encouraged her students to use data from the Family Court list for an improper purpose, such as to identify people in financial distress, with the hope of buying property under value’.

It also suggested she had ‘a habit of not telling the truth’ and had ‘failed to conduct herself with the professionalism of someone providing financial and credit services’.

Ahead of the 2019 election, she urged Australians to buy a property, when Labor was the favourite to prevail with a policy to scrap negative gearing tax breaks for property investors.

‘It probably is a good idea to get in now,’ she told Daily Mail Australia in April 2019.

Mrs Grubisa still has a website describing herself as ‘one of Australia’s leading property educators, authors and speakers’ even though the Australian Securities and Investments Commission has banned her from practising for four years

She argued then Opposition Leader Bill Shorten’s plan was ‘going to be bad for the economy’.

In the 2019 interview, she said property was a better investment than shares and offered more control.

‘You can renovate, you can put tenants in,’ Mrs Grubisa said.

‘With the share market it’s just speculative.’

Daily Mail Australia contacted Mrs Grubisa for a right of reply.