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Walter Muchinguri
The (Real) Estate Agency Council of Zimbabwe is containing cases of fraud in the sector which officials say has seen the misuse of thousands of dollars held by registered estate agents in trust funds.

The council’s registrar Stanlake Hove said they have since de-registered several companies over the past three years. Deregistration is for failures to renew licences as well as for more serious offences.

Prominent companies that have been de-registered or suspended are Seeff Zimbabwe, Fox and Carney, Net Seven, Trevor Dollar Harare, Remax Realty, Alex & Webb, Batanai Properties, Clowie Properties and Ivorygate Real Estate

“The major cause has been misuse of trust funds. But we have also de-registered and suspended those that have not renewed their licences,” he said.

Apart from de-registration, Mr Hove said the other deterrent measures they were using was ensuring that those found abusing trust funds would not be allowed to practise again. Mr Hove said they had since engaged a compliance officer to monitor activities of estate agents.

“We now have a compliance officer who can check Trust account books and ensure each firm is well supervised by the Principal registered agent. Each de-registration and suspension is publicised in the papers so as to warn members of the public from dealing with such firms and individuals,” he said.

The real estate sector has grown steadily over the past three years. Estate Agents firms have grown from 255 in 2014 to 303 firms this year while the number of registered estate agents have increased from 320 to 336.

The council has been actively looking into issues affecting the sector. Last year it successfully lobbied for changes of the law to help fight unethical practices under which some unscrupulous players were under-cutting others by offering lower charges.

A year ago, the Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs issued Statutory Instrument (SI) 89 of 2016 (Estate Agents (Professional Conduct) (Amendment) Rules, setting a five percent commission for general service transactions.

Under this law, no estate agent can charge less than this amount, unless with the approval of the Estate Agents Council.

The SI also sets minimums for a whole range of once-off fees that players should charge for various services offered in the real estate sector.