Former two-time President of the Bahamas Real Estate Association, Pat Strachan, is calling on the government of the Bahamas to amend the Real Estate Brokers and Salesman Act (1995).\u00a0 The government erred when it incorporated the Bahamas Real Estate Association into the Real Estate Board.<\/p>\n
In all jurisdictions where the Real Estate profession is legislated, the Real Estate Board or the body responsible for regulating by law the profession of Real Estate are appointed by the government and the association officers are elected by its members.\u00a0 Citing the state of Florida, the department of Professional Regulation, a government entity is responsible for appointing officers to that board.<\/p>\n
However, an association in the state of Florida, for example, Fort Lauderdale, members in Fort Lauderdale are responsible for electing its officers in the Fort Lauderdale Association.\u00a0 The Attorney General ought to do the right thing and lead the way in amending the Act.<\/p>\n
The proper process to do is for the government of the Bahamas to appoint officers to the Real Estate Board and BREA members elect their officers.\u00a0 As it presently exists, the Chairman of the Real Estate Board and the President of the Bahamas Real Estate Association is one and the same.\u00a0 And therein lies the conflict.<\/p>\n
The regulatory body responsible for issuing licenses should not be a part of the general membership.\u00a0 The former President noted that the present Board may be committing an unfair and unconstitutional act, when it publishes the names of unlicensed persons.<\/p>\n
According to the Act, dues are due on December 31st.\u00a0 However, the Act gives the individual until June 30th of the following year to pay for their license.\u00a0 Persons\u2019 names whose dues are paid by December 31st are entitled to have their names gazetted by January 31st of the following year.\u00a0 And if those persons whose dues were not paid by December 31st. pay afterwards, their names should be gazetted by June 30th of that year.<\/p>\n
What is unlawful is that BREA has been publishing the names of persons who have not paid by December 31st.\u00a0 Not only is that illegal but it gives the impression that the individual may have committed an unethical act.\u00a0 To make matters worst and why I\u2019ve concluded that the present leadership has taken the association back fifty years, those individuals who have not paid by December 31st are being made to reapply for admission back into BREA.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m shocked that none of those persons have challenged this blatant act in the courts.\u00a0 Citing the Multiple Listing Service as the straw that will break the camel\u2019s back.\u00a0 The Past President noted that again in no jurisdiction where the Real Estate profession is legislated, is the Real Estate Board associated with the MLS.\u00a0 All Multiple Listing Service are a private entity.\u00a0 And that is the way it ought to be.<\/p>\n
The fact of the matter is that members\u2019 license dues have been bank rolling the MLS and in two years the Association will be bankrupt.\u00a0 It is unlawful to use members\u2019 license dues to finance what ought to be run by a private entity.<\/p>\n
An additional policy implemented by BREA considered unconstitutional is the Professional Indemnity Insurance forced on its appraisers.\u00a0 It should be incumbent upon the banks to accept or reject an appraisal done by a licensed member of BREA.\u00a0 It should be the banks who insist on appraisers having the Professional Indemnity Insurance.<\/p>\n
The Act only talks about the requirements to be licensed as an appraiser.\u00a0 This may be an unlawful act carried out by the Board to insist that its members have the insurance before they can be licensed.<\/p>\n
Source: BREA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former two-time President of the Bahamas Real Estate Association, Pat Strachan, is calling on the government to amend the Real Estate Brokers and Salesman Act (1995). <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[153,40,49,28],"class_list":["post-7103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","tag-business-2","tag-government","tag-law","tag-real-estate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7103\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}