1. Meet your new regional board 2. No more recommended tariffs 3. Changes to Deeds Office fees



Meet your new regional board The IEA Western Cape regional board of directors for 2004-06 was elected at the recent annual general meeting, and at its first meeting, on 12 October, it elected its office-bearers and assigned portfolios. Anne Porter has been re-elected chairman, with Peter Venter as vice-chairman. Anne, Peter, Mark Marks and Bill Rawson are our finance committee. John Nurse and Linda Casserley are responsible for special projects. Sanjeev Boyjoonauth, Yoga Govender, Joy Macnab and Patrick Maingard deal with transformation. Together with Bonnie Hendricks, Patrick is also responsible for public relations. Kevin Wynne, Penny Petersen and Hanlie Vivier are responsible for ethics. Area committee chairmen, who are ex officio board members, are Virgil Allen (Saldanha), Anton Campbell-Harris (Helderberg), Haroon Daya (Peninsula), Leon Nepgen (Garden Route), and Hanlie Vivier (Northern). The board outlined its programme for the coming year. Top of the agenda is transformation. The Mentor Programme, which has proved so successful and has already produced one of our new regional directors, will continue. The 2004 intake will move on to an advanced programme, and there is already a waiting list for the 2005 intake. And the IEA will investigate the possibility of becoming involved in the Sebenza Township Upliftment Project. No more recommended tariffs That's right - the IEA no longer has a recommended tariff of estate agent commissions and fees. The tariff book will not be published again, and nor may we recommend or give advice about tariffs over the phone or by any other means. Why not? Because the Competition Commission has determined that recommending tariffs is a form of "price fixing" and is therefore illegal. As you know, since 1993 the Code of Conduct has prohibited estate agents from making out that their fees are regulated or prescribed in any way. Now, it is also incorrect for an estate agent to state that his fees are as recommended by the IEA. Fees are, and must always be, negotiable and agreed upon between the estate agency and the client. So, if anyone is using printed documents such as mandates, or agreements of sale, or leases, which refer to the IEA tariff, they should change them. Such references are now obsolete. We would also advise any referral groups, mini-listing networks, and so on, which have arrangements regarding the commissions charged by their members to scrap those arrangements without delay. It is clear that, from now on, the only acceptable tariffs of fees are those of individual organisations. Group, or collective or general tariffs, are no longer acceptable. Changes to Deeds Office fees Please take note that the administrative fees charged by the Deeds Office for registering property transfers and mortgage bonds will change from Monday 1 November 2004. The new property transfer fees, based on the value of the property, are: Up to R80 000 R55 R80 001 - 150 000 R200 R150 001 - 300 000 R260 R300 001- 500 000 R340 R500 001 - 1 000 000 R400 R1 000 001 - 2 000 000 R500 R2 000 001 - 3 000 000 R650 R3 000 001 - 5 000 000 R800 R5 000 001 and more R1000 The new mortgage bond registration fees are R200 for a bond of up to R150 000. For larger bonds the scale is the same as that for transfers.