Dear Colleagues
Welcome to our October report. The end of the year is almost upon us leaving us little time before the Property Practitioners Bill is released in January 2015.
This being said, I urge you all to assist with our membership drive to recruit independent estate agencies in order for us to be a fully representative body, in order to tackle this Bill effectively. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your ongoing support and for all the feedback I receive from you on a daily basis. Please keep the communication going.
Kind regards
Jan
BUSA Legislative Report
Attached is a copy of the BUSA Legislative Report which we receive. Included you will find the following articles and information which you may find useful.
• Parliamentary Calendar – Dates to Note
• DTI Report – New Regulation, Industrial Development and African Expansion
• National Minimum Wage Update – Parliament engages with BUSA Member AgriSA
• All Bills at Parliament – Status Update
BPO Legislative Report – 22 Sep 2014
Property Sector Transformation Charter
The property sector is running out of time to align its transformation charter with the DTI’s revised B-BBEE act and codes. If the sector doesn’t make the April 2015 deadline, the charter will fall away and the property industry will automatically adopt the revised BEE codes. This will place the industry under immense pressure to speed up transformation, In this regard we have attached an article written by Marius Muller, CEO of Pareto.
Property sector nears deadline to keep its transformation charter
PDE Exams
The PDE sitting is on 20 November 2014.
PDE On-line Exam Registration
Over the past few weeks we have had many queries from members about the EAAB on-line PDE registration process. The EAAB site is confusing in that you cannot register for the PDE by going to the “Education” tab.
Following is a step by step guide on how to register:-
From the EAAB Home landing page click on the MYEAAB tab
Click on AGENTS PORTAL and log-in
On the right hand side of the screen click on the Education and Training side bar
EDUCATION & TRAINING
Professional Designation Examination
o Check your Qualification Status
o PDE Online Exam Registration
o PDE Exam Seat Allocation
Click on PDE Online Exam Registration
Select your exam venue
Register
Professional Designation Examination fees
The Professional Designation Examination fees for 2014 will be as follows:
• Professional Designation Examination for non-principal estate agents (PDE 4): R650,00
• Professional Designation Examination for principal estate agents (PDE 5): R870,00
Unpaid Municipality Accounts
We recently published an article on the REBOSA website written by Milton Koumbatis, the Director of Miltons Matsemela Inc on the topic of unpaid municipality accounts. See article below for ease of reference.
In light of the judgement that was passed in the Supreme Court of Appeal in the case of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality v Mathabathe, we recommend that you consider including a clause in your sales agreement to cover this eventuality, should your standard agreement not incorporate such a clause.
The clause could read:- “The Seller hereby indemnifies the Purchaser against any liability for local authority/electricity debts incurred prior to registration of transfers. Should a claim for such a debt arise after registration of transfer, the Seller hereby undertakes to pay this debt on demand to the Purchaser”.
We trust this will offer some protection in view of this ongoing problem.
Can the new owner of a property be forced to pay municipal debt
REBOSA Roadshows
We recently conducted a series of Q&A sessions with our Chief Executive, Jan le Roux, around the Western Cape. We would like to thank our members who made time to attend these sessions and we would like to convey our special thanks to STBB who made their facilities available for us to hold these sessions in. What remains prevalent is the ongoing challenge our members are experiencing at the EAAB in respect of their FFC’s. We would like to remind you that you can email our full time consultant at the EAAB, Fiona Chaitowitz on fiona.rebosa@gmail.com who will gladly assist you in sorting out your FFC problems.
Other matters arising were the imminent Property Practitioners Bill. The draft is due for release in January 2015 and REBOSA will thoroughly interrogate and comment on this bill and make the necessary recommendations to Parliament. In order to do this effectively an equitable amount of funding needs to be made available to pay our legal team. In addition, the comments and recommendations need to be representative of the entire real estate industry and not just a handful of real estate business owners.
In this regard Jan le Roux urged members to recruit independent estate agencies who are not existing members of REBOSA to lend their weight behind this cause. New REBOSA membership queries can be addressed to Adrianne at info@rebosa.co.za
It was further noted that transformation of the industry needs to be expedited but has to happen in a planned and structured way. REBOSA will provide more feedback on this in the following weeks.
