The Estate Agents Affairs Board (EAAB) has admitted that there were issues with a number of FFC applications for 2021 - but Rebosa says the regulator had ample time after the October 2020 deadline to sort these out.
Estate Agents Affairs Board CEO Mamodupi Mohlala says the EAAB has delivered its "best ever performance" in issuing the required Fidelity Fund Certificates for 2021, and plans to oppose the high court application by the Real Estate Business Owners of South Africa (REBOSA) that claims the regulator is failing to do its duties.
REBOSA turned to court action at the end of January claiming the EAAB is in breach of its statutory duties according to Estate Agencies Affairs Act 112 of 1976, and is asking the court to order the regulator to urgently issue the necessary certificates. REBOSA, acting on behalf of its members, claims the EAAB has "become an active hindrance to their ability to conduct business in accordance with the law".
READ: REBOSA takes EAAB to court over 'FFC delays'
However, Mohlala says, "We are in the process of preparing our answering affidavit and we have served the notice of intention to oppose the application."
"We note that these are persons’ livelihood and as such all compliant FFC applicants deserve to hold their FFCs so they can do business. We are committed to ensuring that every legitimate FFC applicant is able to get his or her certificate in time and is able to operate. The issue of delayed production of FFCs has been a problem at EAAB for the past seven to ten years. Despite the historical problems the EAAB in 2020 delivered it best ever performance recording on the 23 December 2020, we had issued over 33 000 FFCs. At the time we believed were all the compliant FFCs and met all the requirements.
Mohlala says a further three thousand applications had outstanding documents, with the necessary applicants told about the issues with their applications at “various intervals in late 2020”.
"The applicants were informed that the FFCs would not be issued until the outstanding documents were presented. The application before court relates to 210 agents that allege that they did not received FFCs. We are going through the list and have noted that some have already been issued, some are duplicates, some have outstanding information and with those that are new we have already issued the FFCs. The FFCs were issued as from Saturday when we first received the list.
SEE: The new Property Practitioners Act: Key regulations as effect date expected
"We wish to place on record that we have from October 2020 to date issued over 35000 FFCs. This would mean the ones that are referred to court are less than three (3) per cent of the total number of FFCs issued."
When asked to clarify the extent of the delays for FFCs in relation to the high court application, Jan le Roux, Chief Executive of Real Estate Business Owners of South Africa (REBOSA) says, "Last year the EAAB eventually issued 51000 FFC’s. It is extremely unlikely that the entire difference would be due to agents leaving the industry or erring in some way with respect of renewal applications."
"This is indicative of the ‘ethos’ at the EAAB, ie 'we have done our best and if three percent of agents cannot earn a living it is ok’. Of course, much more than three percent are affected. One must also keep in mind that the EAAB received applications from 1 July till 31 October, which is ample time to get the job done," says Le Roux
But Mohlala says it remains unclear why REBOSA did not raise these concerns when the two industry bodies met in October 2020.
"Further we will be registering our concern at court that we have standing meetings with REBOSA where staff of EAAB meet Staff of REBOSA bi-weekly. The teams met in October 2020 but the list of these outstanding FFCs that is now being presented to court was never presented at that forum where it could have been timeously resolved. However, I have established a task team that will look into this matter and give a full report and proposal to make sure that this situation does not arise ever again."
"Further we are also in the process of overhauling and updating our Information Technology system. The service provider should be in place by the end of March 2021. We believe that the overhaul of the system which has not been changed in the past ten years will immensely improve all areas of our performance in the course of migrating to PPRA," says Mohlala.
Print
