The Department of Human Settlements has kick-started a series of national public information sessions to ensure that more South Africans become accustomed to the content and purpose of the draft regulations to give effect to the Property Practitioners Act.
President Cyril Ramaphosa signed the Property Practitioners Act into law in September 2019, establishing the Property Practitioners Regulatory Authority as a statutory entity aimed at regulating the real estate sector.
To strengthen government’s efforts to transform the property market - valued at an estimated R7.9 trillion - to be reflective of the country’s demographics, the regulations will professionalise the property market and promote it as a profession of choice.
The regulations will also set-out administrative processes and procedures towards the implementation of the Property Practitioners Act, and regulate the code of conduct of practitioners.
Officials from the department are currently visiting the Eastern Cape, where the first public sessions commenced at Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality, East London, on 11 March 2020, and Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality, Port Elizabeth, on 12 March 2020.
The next sessions will be held in Limpopo, Mpumalanga, North West, KwaZulu-Natal, Northern Cape, Free State, Western Cape, and end in Gauteng.
The department and the Estate Agency Affairs Board has called on property practitioners, including bond originators, auctioneers, trusts, property evaluators, accessors and the public at large, to comment on the draft regulations to be published in the government gazette by Human Settlements Minister Lindiwe Sisulu. – SAnews.gov.za
