Editor
The recent disqualification of many property practitioners due to non-compliance with educational requirements on the 30th of June has caused great upheaval and created uncertainty in the industry when many qualified agents received erroneous letters of disqualification. Rebosa has managed to obtain more clarity on a number of issues.
Disqualification notices as well as the revised Clarity Notice on the 30th of June this year refer.
PDE 4 and 5 exemptions
Estate agents, who held FFCs for any consecutive five-year period before 2008, are automatically exempted from PDE 4 if they were full-status agents, and from PDE5 if they were principals for that period. Due to errors during the notification of disqualification process, several of these agents received disqualification notices. “Some disqualification notices were issued in error. If you are compliant with the education regulations and received a disqualification notice, you are required to notify the PPRA by email at educompliance@theppra.org.za to have your status upgraded and the disqualification removed”, shares Adrianne du Toit, head of stakeholder relations at Rebosa.
Six-month extensions and FFCs
Du Toit clarifies that disqualified agents who do not apply for the 6-month extension to obtain the relevant qualifications, or in instances where the PPRA do not approve such applications, will still retain their FFC and be able to trade until the expiry date of the FFC. i.e. During this period they will still be able to transact on the MyPPRA portal to comply with CPD requirements.
What happens if agents don’t obtain their qualifications before their FFC expires?
Should property practitioners not obtain the required qualifications before applying for a new FFC however, they will not be able to renew. Should a practitioner have been practising as a principal up to that point, they will only be able to obtain an FFC as a full-status agent if qualified as such. Full-status estate agents who have been disqualified and are trading as full-status agents at present will, on failure to obtain the necessary qualifications timeously, only be able to re-register as candidate property practitioners.
