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EAAB Privyseal and Fidelity Fund Certificate

Category Property News

EAAB Privyseal and Fidelity Fund Certificate

New digital authentication set to eliminate rogue estate agents

When buying or selling a property, whether for thousands or millions, you only want to deal with bona fide registered agents. This may seem obvious, but when you are browsing the neighbourhoods on a Sunday afternoon looking for your dream home, you probably aren’t too fussed about the agent when you find it. Well you should be. A lot can go wrong when selling or buying a house, it shouldn’t, but it can, and if you are dealing with an unregistered agent, you can land up losing a lot of money, sometimes without recourse

All agents require a valid license to operate, a Fidelity Fund Certificate. If they do not posses one, they are not legally allowed to receive any remuneration for property services delivered and are not allowed to operate as a real estate agent. Technically, if you buy a property from an unlicensed estate agent, the seller might well escape paying commission. But at what cost? Which comes to the issue of  what the EAAB has done about these rogue estate agents.

The PrivySeal (Pty) Ltd Consumer Protection Initiative

The EAAB has implemented the PrivySeal online authentication system, which allows anyone at any time to access real-time information on any registered agents. In order to register, a valid Fidelity Fund Certificate is required. So, before you engage an agent to sell your home or put an offer to purchase in, go check the agent’s credentials online. The Privyseal will confirm whether they are indeed a registered estate agent and licensed to operate.

How many agents are signed up?

By the beginning of this year more than 65% of estate agents had signed up and were actively using their Privyseal. Considering that it was only activated last year, this is very encouraging for the industry as whole. Commented Helen Ward of Helen Melon Properties, “This is a big step forward to routing out unlicensed agents and making it more difficult for them to operate. All our agents are registered and we encourage every agent who hasn’t yet registered to please do so, for your sake and that of the industry.”

While PrivySeal is already being used by Law Societies and the South African Qualifications Authority, amongst others, the EAAB is the first industry regulator to implement the system. The system maintains real time authentication and checks members qualifications every few minutes, providing real time online verification.

If you’d like to find out more about this, or you have any other property questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Author: Helen Ward

Submitted 17 Jan 18 / Views 3278