Every consumer who intends to have any business dealings with a person claiming to be an estate agent should first ask that person to produce proof that they have an NQF4 level qualification in real estate, and for a valid Fidelity Fund Certificate that is no more than a year old.
“Time and again we read and hear about unfortunate members of the public who have supposedly been taken for a ride by an estate agent, but in the great majority of these cases it turns out that the person was actually just someone masquerading as an agent – not actually an agent at all – showing that many consumers don’t know enough about how to tell the difference,” says Stoffel Janse van Rensburg, Rawson Property Group franchisee for the Vaal area.
Van Rensburg says recent scams have included fake sales, in which the bogus agents have pretended to sell stands in non-existent developments and disappeared with all the buyers’ deposits, fake rentals where con-artists have also just collected as many deposits as possible from prospective tenants or holidaymakers before disappearing, and the theft of money from sectional title body corporate accounts by unregistered managing agents, as well as the misappropriation of buyer or tenant deposits from an agency trust account.
“All these frauds have happened despite the introduction of much stricter education and qualification requirements for estate agents, in addition to the requirement for anyone working as an estate agent to be registered with the Estate Agency Affairs Board (EAAB) and be in possession of a current Fidelity Fund Certificate,” says Van Rensburg.
Landlords should never allow their properties to be occupied by tenants until there is a lease in place and they are certain the deposit has been paid into a trust account.
Many consumers, he says, including sellers and landlords as well as buyers and tenants, often have no idea that estate agents need to be properly qualified, or that it is their right to ask for a valid fidelity fund certificate and check that any deposits paid are going into a proper trust account.
“We would really like to see the Department of Human Settlements or the EAAB do more to get the word out about the benefits of working with certified agents – and about the dangers of dealing with those who are not,” says Van Rensburg.
“We would also like to see more vigorous checks being done to ensure that agency principals who are certified are not letting their unqualified intern agents work without supervision.”
Van Rensburg warns consumers to take note of the following: