Ministerial guidelines will not disrupt land agency businesses

17Dec 2021
Editor
The Guardian
Ministerial guidelines will not disrupt land agency businesses

​​​​​​​FORMALISATION is in the air for the land agency sub-sector, after Lands, Housing and Human Settlements Development minister William Lukuvi issued what amounts to a ’digital’ aspect to conduct of the business. The terms laid out require identification of the person and premises from-

-where he or she will be conducting business, and need to be recognised by the ministry by actual certification. It looks like these conditions will be operating in a similar manner as the small traders identification cards of the past, now put aside so that trading is conducted in a more formalised atmosphere, not in wooden kiosks, etc.

Those handling renting and sales of housing or portions of rental space will now be registered and be known as to where they operate, and pay a 20,000/- fee to the government. It also appears that agents will have to take frame spaces and have at least one table (or roundtable) and chairs, which can thus be identified as business premises, unlike at present where many of them operate from tree shades, etc. In that case a level of constraint is added in terms of conduct, if at least one’s offices or partners are known.

The terms of conducting real estate agency – as opposed to real estate business as such, as that is a different matter – were not as radical as it was earlier anticipated. There were worries that agency per se would be proscribed or house owners be directed to consult lawyers, etc to do the paperwork for whoever will come wishing to take up rental space, whether it is a room, a house or even a piece of land to farm, etc. That would have brought up some problems for lawyers have no time to go around to hear of who needs a tenant and who wishes for renting space and on what terms, what sort of surroundings or owners.

Nor was it apparent that the ministry seeks to change the terms of business conduct or symbiosis between those who need clients and those who bring them for signing a rental contract, that it is the client (renting applicant) who pays the agent. There was a time the ministry was intimating that it should be the owner who pays the agent, which is excessively sympathetic with the rental space customer, and for no apparent reason. The regulations or guidelines as set out by the minister didn’t have any such disruptive initiative..

It can thus be said that the terms of conducting rental agency business (rather than real estate business as such) are user friendly, as demanding that rental space agents or go-betweens that link house owners and those who need to rent have offices or have formal identity cards, pay some tax, isn’t too much.  They will now rent frame space and conduct work from there like other traders, and pay a little tax, while being assured of their retainer fees (to remain in the trade) as is the case at present. Nobody needs to complain.

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