By Clinton Urling
I recently had an unpleasant experience with a real estate agent who has his name and contact information on almost every property up for sale in Guyana.
This agent approached me about a number of properties he had in his portfolio to sell and agreed to show personally a few of them. A few days later, I sent an e-mail expressing my interest in one of the properties, making an offer to purchase it at a price I believed to be mutually comfortable for both the buyer’s and seller’s interests.
A few days later, I received a response indicating that the owner had accepted my offer. Subsequently, I requested a written letter of acceptance and intent to sell the said property, which was agreed to and fulfilled a few days later. After touring the property once more, I indicated to the agent that I would contact the bank for a mortgage to purchase which would entail a lot of bank prerequisites taking up a good deal of my time, energy and financial resources. I was looking for a clear assurance – which the agent provided – that the prospective property sale would proceed earnestly with the owner’s intentions as stated.
Several weeks passed. My mortgage application was approved and I received a call from my agent indicating that the owner had arrived in the country and was ready to proceed with the signing of the agreement of sale. We agreed on a date but on the morning of the proposed signing, I was unable to contact the agent. When I finally made contact with him, the agent said the owner was no longer interested in selling the property. The agent gave at least four conflicting versions of an explanation and it was difficult to pinpoint the actual reason for the agreement falling apart. After my repeated insistence, he confessed that the property had been sold to someone else.
I was flabbergasted understandably and was extremely disappointed considering all of the input that had been invested in this project. My attorney filed an injunction prohibiting the sale of the property and compelling the owner to honor his contractual obligation to sell the property as originally indicated. The matter is still receiving the Court’s attention and in a future column, I will provide an update on the outcome.
I relate this story because it should focus attention on an issue that will become increasingly critical as the nation’s economy grows – the regulation of real estate agents in Guyana. With such strong economic prospects, there is a pressing need for effective regulation of residential and commercial real estate brokerage services. As the volume of consumer expenditures for these services expand, so does the frequency of informal complaints and formal concerns about professional credibility.
In the absence of a regulatory body, a real estate commission, board, or authority with sanctioning power, there is no recourse, unless the person is willing to take the agent through tedious and expensive court proceedings. Otherwise, agents will have little or no motivation to operate differently, knowing that there are, at best, only limited repercussions for actions that should be seen normally in professional settings as unethical or blatantly dishonest, depending upon the circumstances involved.
Moreover, a comprehensive Real Estate Agents Act is required to promote and protect the interests of consumers with respect to transactions that relate to real estate and to promote public confidence in the performance of real estate agency work performance. One important feature of any such proposed legislation should be the requirement of being licensed to carry out the tasks involved. Another would be the establishment of an agency with clear authority to, among other responsibilities, develop rules of professional practice and sustain these rules for licencees. There would be a prescribed code of ethics along with a setting of fees and disciplinary levies for infractions of code requirements.
The agency also would be responsible for administering the licensing regime for agents, and ensuring that a register of licencees is established, kept, and maintained. Furthermore, it would provide grievance and relief procedures for the lodging of complaints and the protocol for investigating and initiating proceedings relative to offences covered under the Act.
Such regulation is standard in many nations, small and large. Guyana, with its growing real estate sector and concomitant corps of real estate agents, must recognize the importance that such an initiative would have on inspiring trust and confidence in both local and foreign consumers who are attracted with greater frequency to the real estate asset potential in the nation.
