Pretoria - The property industry and its regulator, the Estate Agency Affairs Board (EAAB), appear to have settled their differences.
They have been at loggerheads for several years over a variety of issues, not least the alleged inability of the board to issue fidelity fund certificates to estate agents timeously.
A fidelity fund certificate is in effect a licence that allows a person to operate as an estate agent and earn commission.
Willie Marais, the national president of the Institute of Estate Agents of SA (Ieasa), agreed yesterday that there was a new spirit of co-operation between the industry, Ieasa and the EAAB.
Marais said evidence of this was the sharing of information in a number of forums.
Ieasa claimed senior EAAB officials had previously not wanted to meet Ieasa delegates.
"It seems the relationship has really mended and there are better lines of communication. We requested an additional examination [for estate agents] after the March examination because the new educational regulations had not been promulgated yet and this was readily granted," he said.
Marais said problems experienced by agents with the issuing of their fidelity fund certificates had been addressed.
He said EAAB chief executive Nomonde Mapetla had, at Ieasa's request, appointed a dedicated person to deal with problems of Ieasa members.
Marais said there seemed to be far fewer instances where Ieasa members were making no progress with their inquiries.
The EAAB recently decided the renewal of certificates would be staggered throughout the year rather than taking place once a year. A similar system was adopted many years ago by the transport authorities to relieve the administrative burden caused by processing vehicle licence renewals.
New educational regulations that will elevate the industry to a profession became effective from Tuesday.
Marais said the industry had been battling to achieve this since the 1980s but was told by the government that higher qualifications would create a barrier to entry.
"The government changed its view 360 degrees. It's fantastic. It will move the profession up a couple notches and put us where we should have been a long time ago.
"What we are not completely happy with is that the system has been implemented but the study material is not ready. We're quite certain the industry will be frozen from an educational viewpoint for some time because of this," he said.
Requests for comment from Mapetla were unsuccessful.
Clive Ashpol, the EAAB's education and training manager, said the board was not obliged to produce study material but wished to give everyone wanting to enter the industry a good chance.
Ashpol confirmed the study material was not yet available because of delays at the consultants appointed to compile it.
He was confident all the material would be received and reviewed this month for submission to the services sector education and training authority for moderation.
The authority "has given us an undertaking to prioritise the moderation of the material. We're therefore hoping to be up and running with this material within a month," he said.
Published on the web by Business Report on July 18, 2008.
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