Assessment & Traning Centre

May 2011

Dear Rental Agents

Rental Agents' Day

We were delighted to welcome so many of you to our first Rental Agents' Day on 8 April 2011. Unexpectedly the education team sent from the Consumer Protection Commission was able to address us and even though this information session had to be shortened, it was enough for us to realize that we are part of this act, and that our documents will have to be altered.

Once again I urge you not to rush into expensive undertakings but to slowly absorb what will be needed and once the initial issues are sifted, a directive will be given nationally as to exactly what alterations are legally correct.

The 20 day notice period that a tenant can tender at any stage during a fixed period can be dealt with as usual. The tenant is to be notified that another tenant should be sought by both the tenant and the landlord or agent (both parties need to mitigate their losses) and the tenant will be held responsible for the rent until a new lease is signed. A reasonable cancellation penalty can be imposed and for this we are waiting for instruction.

A lease (written in plain language) must be carefully explained to a tenant failing which the tenant may defend himself by saying he did not understand what his obligations were.

A clause, which should be separately initialled, should be added to the lease stating that the tenant understands what each clause means.

The longest lease is two years.

It is the obligation of the landlord (or his agent) to give notice to the tenant or extend the lease of a tenant. It is not the tenant's responsibility.

Indemnity clauses protecting the landlord are not acceptable. If the landlord is found to be guilty of negligence with regard to the maintenance of a property, he has to repair. The tenant cannot be responsible for anything that the landlord should be doing with regard to the property.

Watch this space for further information.

Precautions to take prior to eviction - Salim Patel listed what could be done in this regard though his overriding advice was to quietly negotiate with a tenant to get them to leave without hysteria or threats.

The Professional Rental Agent - Johan Meyer informed the agents as to how to become more professional in their activities surrounding rental work and urged them to read and act according to the Code of Conduct which governs all estate agents. His advice was excellent and do-able!

Rental Housing Tribunal - Arno Botha, the chairperson of the Tribunal, spoke about the work of the Tribunal and was given an enthusiastic round of applause when he stated that soon tenants who had not paid their rent would not be permitted to lodge cases until their rent was up to date.

The Lego Man, Jonathan Marks, provided 45 minutes of light relief when he handed out packets of Adult Play Lego and reminded agents of how they worked as teams and solved problems when they were children, and how those characteristics could be applied in their work. Five vouchers were awarded to five agents to hold sessions to further team building in their firms.

After lunch Marlon Shevelew, the attorney specializing in the Consumer Protection Act, spoke on the implications of this act and explained difficult parts to the agents. The regulations of the CP Act have only just been released and have altered sections necessitating new explanations. We will become familiar with the demands of the act as time goes by with the expert held of legal advisors such as Marlon.

Debbie and I were most satisfied with this day during which we managed to bring to the attention a number of aspects of residential rentals that have altered during the years. We are fully aware that training is constantly required and have undertaken to make that training as easy and cost effective as we can.

Refund of deposits

There are a number of rental agencies that have become liquidated during the past few years. Unfortunately it is often found that the trust account has been cleared out, and this is only discovered once a tenant vacates and applies for his deposit. The Rental Housing Tribunal has had a number of cases in this regard, and mostly tenants have been advised to approach the Estate Agency Affairs Board whose fidelity fund covers instances such as these.

Please note that by common law the landlord (owner) is responsible for refunding a deposit as he/she mandated the agent or agency to collect a deposit and retain it. The tenant is not expected to investigate what happened to a deposit because the lease agreement is generally between the owner and the tenant. The tenant is entitled to approach the owner to refund the deposit, even if the owner does not have it. It is then the landlord's (owner's) responsibility to approach the EAAB and claim a refund of the deposit because his mandated agent has absconded with trust funds.

I am aware that most owners are outraged about this, but it is part of the risk of owning residential property. It is found that there is a risk both ways, if the owner retains the deposit or if the agent keeps it. Hopefully in the future there may be an official body established into which deposits can be placed where there will be less risk to individual tenants.

Please keep in mind that as you curse and swear about too much new legislation which is protecting tenants, if the tenants of our country had been treated with consideration in the past and landlords had not taken gross advantage of hiking up rents to unreasonable amounts, not repairing properties when needed and retaining deposits when most should have been refunded, the legislation would not have been as tough as it is.I trust that difficult and unreasonable landlords will finally realize that owning a residential property does not give them the right to treat tenants as though they were entrants into an institution or jail!

Commercial & Industrial Training

We are pleased to inform you that we have broadened our scope of training to include Commercial & Industrial Letting and Sales. We are very happy to have Don Clark, Broker Manager and Trainer, from Permanent Trust on board to run these courses. Don is very experienced and is an expert in this field of the industry. For more information on the course content email Debbie on This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Corporate Training

If you are a Principal/Manager and you would like us to train all your agents at your office in both residential rentals or commercial and industrial letting/ sales, please call Debbie Knipe to discuss your requirements on 084 516 7334.


General

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Vivien & Debbie