MAIN IMAGE: Steven Ngubeni, chairperson of the PPRA
Editor
Speaking at the PPRA event, held in partnership with the Minister of Human Settlements, Steven Ngubeni, Chairperson of the PPRA had strong words for illegal estate agents, and reiterated the Authority’s desire to root out the undesirable practices of paying accreditation fees to operate within HOAs.
Illegal practitioners ‘are an infestation’
Thanking the 1,000-odd candidate practitioners who responded to the 30 June deadline for writing their PDE exams, Ngubeni then turned his attention to the issue of illegal practitioners, “They are an infestation. I understand that it’s very painful to be registered, to subject yourself to the law and yet there is someone who is operating clandestinely next door making the same, if not more money than you are making. Yet you are here, and we are regulating you and sometimes we’re too harsh for you, and yet we’re not doing anything with those that are illegal. So, we’ve taken a resolve to say we’re going to pay special attention to those people, and we are going to launch a very aggressive campaign against them. We hope for your assistance. We hope for your support”.
He went on to say that while the Act empowers the PPRA to go after these illegal practitioners, the Authority seeks not purely punitive measures, but to convert these illegal agents, “We’re going to say to them, this is the right way of doing business…Because we do want them to register. We’re not trying to shut them out and we are looking at a kind of amnesty process”.
At present no details were shared about what shape the amnesty process would take, but the message from the PPRA is clear – illegal practitioners are encouraged to make right and register as candidate practitioners.
Bringing out the big guns against HOA fees
We have covered the issue of undesirable business practices, i.e. the paying of fees to operate within estates extensively in recent weeks. Keenan include these article links please: Why are agents still paying HOA fees?, Rebosa opposes HOA fees for agents under any guise, and Follow the money.
While there was a claim at one point that the PPRA was, in fact, considering a standardised fee for agents to pay HOAs, this has been debunked, with Ngubeni not only acknowledging the issue but emphasising that the PPRA is taking serious action.
“They are creating their own criteria over and above what the legitimate regulator has created. They are also asking you for money. We have made a commitment that we’re going to be dealing with those people quite aggressively, and the process has begun – we have started communicating with them and are following legal procedures. We have also started to involve the Competition Commission because we believe some of these practices are not competitive, that they are very limiting, that they’re monopolistic in nature”.