Month: November 2012

Draft National Co-operative Regulations now available for Comment

/ David Crombie / Leave a comment

Under the Co-operatives National Law (CNL) a uniform set of laws for co-operatives is proposed for all states and territories. This will be achieved by each state and territory either adopting the template Co-operatives National Law or passing alternate legislation consistent with the CNL.

The Draft National Co-operative Regulations have now been released for comment. Co-operatives are encouraged to offer their insights and provide comment on the proposed legislation on the NSW Fair Trading website.

 

Estate Agents Co-operative and Odusee partner for a new convenient way to search online for Australian properties

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Major global vertical database search engine, Odusee, has announced a relationship
with the Estate Agents Co-operative and its property portal, realestateworld.com.au, to
further enhance the user experience of both sites and provide the portals real estate
customers an even greater exposure for their office brands and property listings.

The collaboration between the Estate Agents Co-operative, one of the largest
independent real estate organisation in Australia responsible for launching the
realestateworld.com.au brand in June 2008, and Odusee will involve a ‘listings display’
arrangement between the two sites.

“We are excited to be working with Odusee Australia in a venture that will see property
listings from realestateworld.com.au uploaded to Odusee on a daily basis”, said David
Crombie, Chief Executive Officer, Estate Agents Co-operative Ltd. “This arrangement
not only enhances the level of service we can provide to real estate consumers, but will
also deliver greater exposure for our portal agents’ listings.”

Nikki Varquez, Business Development Manager at Odusee expanded further, “We are
delighted to now include realestateworld.com.au as the latest inclusion into our Odusee
real estate search engine. Australia is a global leader in using the internet to search for
property and there are around 25 portals and franchise groups serving the market at any
one time. These sites are our partners. Odusee provides the entry point for consumers
with our partner portals listing details as the destination.”

New Swimming Pool Laws Will Affect Sales and Property Management

/ David Crombie / Leave a comment

The Swimming Pools Amendment Act 2012 was passed by both houses of the NSW Parliament on 23 October 2012.

This Act makes a number of significant changes to the Swimming Pool Act 1992 with consequential amendments to the Conveyancing (Sale of land) Regulation 2010 and the Residential Tenancies Regulation 2010.

For the sale of property it will be a requirement to have a valid certificate of compliance in respect of the pool or a relevant occupation certificate annexed to the contract of sale.

When leasing property a copy of the certificate must be provided to the new tenant. The Residential Tenancy Agreement will be amended to reflect this requirement.

A relevant occupation certificate is defined in the legislation as “an occupation certificate issued under the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 that is less than 3 years old and that authorises the use of the swimming pool.”

Both the above requirements will come into force from 23 April 2014.

Other changes include:

  1. Local councils must, by no later than 23 April 2013, develop and adopt a programme for the inspection of swimming pools within its area.
  2. A Register of swimming pools is to be established and administered by the Director General.
  3. By no later than 23 October 2013 local councils must make provision for the initial and subsequent inspection of pools in accordance with their adopted plan.
  4. Swimming pool owners are required to register their pools with their local councils by no later than 23 April 2013.

Property managers should advise their clients who own pools of the requirement to register them by 23 April 2013 and then subsequently ensure that a valid Compliance or Occupation certificate is provided with each new tenancy agreement entered into from 23 April 2014.

Sales staff should also inform prospective vendors of the requirements, having regard to the relevant dates and also check with their solicitor or conveyancer regarding compliance with the provisions.

Click here to access the Swimming Pools Amendment Act 2012.

National Licensing For Property Occupations

/ David Crombie / Leave a comment

Practitioners would be well aware that the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) has for some time been developing regulatory reform for a single national licence for real estate agents. Consultation with a wide range of stakeholders and representative industry bodies has taken place at both state and national levels coordinated by the COAG National Licensing Steering Committee.

All this activity culminated in the release of the Consultation Regulation Impact Statement (RIS). The content of this long awaited and highly anticipated document was both surprising and disappointing to say the least.

The RIS has, as a fundamental platform, the proposal to deregulate a huge proportion of real estate transactions on the basis that some State and Territories have inconsistent regulatory requirements for various component activities in real estate practice and that some appear to have no strong rationale for inclusion.

Practice areas proposed to be TOTALLY deregulated include:
– All Commercial activity including Industrial and Retail (sales, auctions, leasing and management)
– All Livestock sales, purchase and auction
– All Primary Production land (sales, auction, leasing and management). The recommendation is to abolish the existing Stock and Station Agents licence
– All holiday and short term leasing up to 90 days

Other significant changes proposed include:
– Buyers Agents and On Site Residential Property Manager licenses to be merged with the Real Estate Agent licence
– Abolish the Certificate of Registration requirement for Strata Managers representative
– Abolish mandatory CPD

Licence categories to be retained are:
– Real Estate Agent. This will be for residential transactions only and will include Buyers Agent and On Site Residential Property Manager
– Business Agent
– Strata Managing Agent
– Auctioneer
– Certificate of Registration for employees, not Strata.

So What Does All This Mean?
All transactions in the deregulated categories can be conducted by unqualified, unsupervised and unlicensed persons operating outside a regulatory environment. In essence NO Rules of Conduct, NO Trust Accounts, NO Audits and NO Consumer Protection. A major concern for Agents, Consumers and Regulators is the fact that property transactions worth billions of dollars nationally will be removed from the existing regulatory structure with commensurate massive impacts on agency practice and consumer protection.

The rationale behind this proposal is difficult if not impossible to understand and if implemented will change the face of agency practice, erode consumer confidence and fail to achieve the stated goals of the national licencing initiative.

In our submission we supported the option to maintain the status quo and suggested that the real estate industry be moved to the second tranche of national licencing to allow for further consultation and consideration of the issues raised in the submissions.

It is expected that submissions will be considered in November and a final outcome known by December 2012. Members will be kept informed as developments occur.