The Council for Estate Agencies (CEA) has stressed that it’s an offence for unregistered salesperson to do estate agency work.
This includes dealing with buyers and sellers of property, getting involved in the negotiation of the transaction and getting involved in any work after the purchase or sale of the property.
Registered real estate agents who appoint unregistered persons to do estate agency work may be taken to task by the CEA’s disciplinary committee.
The committee could reprimand, revoke or suspend the registration, or impose a fine of up to S$75,000, or attach conditions to the registration.
New rules under the Estate Agents Act which kicked in on January 1, requires estate agents to be licensed and salespersons to be registered with the Council.
However, there are concerns that non-registered agents could exploit a loophole by getting registered agents to act as ‘runners’.
Estate agents which Channel NewsAsia spoke to said it was not worth the risk as the penalties were heavy enough.
Source : Channel NewsAsia – 6 Jan 2011