REAL estate agency ERA has been ordered by the High Court to cough up $257,000 and other expenses to a married couple whose property agent had acted in conflict of interest.

Mr Yuen Chow Hin and Madam Wong Wai Fan engaged ERA agent Jeremy Ang to sell their downtown apartment in mid-2007.

But soon after soon after the couple granted Madam Natassha Sadiq the right to purchase the property for $688,000, the two-bedroom apartment at The Riverside Piazza was resold for $945,000.

It was only later that the couple found about the second deal and that the woman who bought their flat, then flipped it for a profit, was married to the boss of their housing agent.

The couple sued ERA Realty Network in the High Court seeking $257,000 - the difference between the two sale prices.

On Thursday, Justice Choo Han Teck ruled in favour of the couple and found that the conduct of the agent Jeremy Ang and his boss, Mike Parikh, amounted to breach of duty and fraud.

The two men were "ethically wrong and in breach of contract by reason of creating a conflict of interest between their client and themselves", said the judge.

When a property agent is engaged to sell or buy property, he has a responsibility to act in the interests of the person who hired him - not his own, or his friends', or his relatives' or his boss', said the judge.