Glen Ivy Real Estate Classes Under Probe : Regulation: Action by the state follows reports that the class work fell well short of requirements.

The state Department of Real Estate acknowledged Wednesday that it has begun an inquiry into classes held at Glen Ivy Financial Group, the nation’s largest time-share company, that were supposed to prepare employees for the state real estate exam but may have violated regulations instead.

“We’re checking into it,” said Robert McCabe, the department’s regional manager for Northern California. He declined to elaborate.

Alexander Auerbach, a Glen Ivy spokesman, said the department has asked the Corona firm to “send a letter of explanation, from the company’s perspective, of what went on and what the company was doing about it.”

The Times reported earlier this month that some former and current Glen Ivy employees had raised questions about the course, which was supposed to prepare them for the California real estate licensing exam.

The Department of Real Estate requires that students complete 45 hours of class work covering subjects such as law, ethics and financing before sitting for the licensing exam. After meeting the 45-hour requirement, they are given a certificate of completion.

Glen Ivy’s former and current employees claim that courses held at company sales sites in Newport Beach and West Covina were only about two hours long and that they received certificates a few weeks later.

Earlier this month, Glen Ivy Chairman Ralph Mann, responding to an inquiry from The Times, released a statement saying, “It is possible that students in the class did not fulfill the state-mandated number of hours of home study.”

Glen Ivy officials have said the classes were the work of individual employees acting without management’s authorization. The company also said it has hired a Santa Monica attorney to investigate the matter.

“The company has retained an outside investigator to review the classes and that report is due at the end of the month,” Auerbach said Wednesday.

Meanwhile, several of Glen Ivy’s executives have resigned in recent weeks, including its chief operating officer, advertising and public relations director, and vice president of finance.

Auerbach said the resignations were unrelated to disclosures that Glen Ivy’s telemarketing practices are under review by the attorney general’s office and that the Department of Real Estate has filed an action to suspend or revoke the company’s license because of alleged irregularities in its record keeping.

The company has denied any wrongdoing in both of those cases.

Former Chief Operating Officer Robert Radez said in an interview Wednesday that he resigned a month before the end of his employment contract after accomplishing his goal: helping Mann reacquire the company from one-time owner General Development Corp.

“I’m back on the golf course,” he said Wednesday.

Lee Smith, the company’s spokesman for six years, resigned June 7 because his department was eliminated in a cost-cutting move, Auerbach said.

Smith was unavailable for comment Wednesday.

Harish Naran, Glen Ivy’s vice president of finance, also resigned June 7. Auerbach attributed Naran’s departure to a “personality conflict” with a higher-ranking executive.

John Raymond, executive assistant to the president, resigned earlier this month as well.

Radez has said Raymond will continue to work for Glen Ivy as a consultant.

“I played a great part in helping to build that company and it’s the finest of its kind in the world,” Radez said Wednesday. “It’s the most honest, consumer-oriented . . . company in the world. Because of my personal involvement, I take personal offense at the innuendo of the attacks on the company for no reason.”