Professionals Armadale Real Estate The Real Estate Institute of Australia (REIA) says Continued Professional Development (CPD) should be mandatory for all real estate professionals.
Under COAG’s proposed national licensing model, CPD would no longer be guaranteed for real estate agents. Currently half the States and Territories have mandatory CPD.
REIA President Ms Pamela Bennett says, “Agents need to know the various conduct laws for different jurisdictions, specific laws that are relevant to selling or managing a property and appropriate national legislation.”
“Continuing education ensures up-skilling and development of individuals. Abolishing mandatory CPD would leave the consumer at risk.”
“The proof is in the pudding. Since Western Australia introduced mandatory CPD in 2007, written complaints across all categories of real estate activity have dropped by around twothirds.”
The National Occupational Licensing Authority (NOLA) is proposing to abolish mandatory CPD but have the power to require it be irregularly done at times of major changes to real estate laws.
REIA rejected the proposal put forward by NOLA at the Occupational Licensing Advisory Committee (OLAC) meeting.
Ms Bennett says the proposal shows a lack of knowledge of the profession and creates a bottleneck of centralised decision making. She says there are many more issues that an agent needs to be aware of.
“Agents need to be across a great number of constantly changing laws regarding issues such as smoke detectors, swimming pools, GST implications, environmental protection guidelines, equal opportunity legislation, OH&S, privacy and many more.”
The Real Estate Institute of Australia (REIA) is the national professional association for real estate
agents in Australia. For further information or interview opportunities,
please contact:
Pamela Bennett, REIA President, 0412 212 313
Amanda Lynch, REIA CEO, 0419 123 862
Andrea Close, REIA Manager Communications, 0403 298 685