The Real Estate Agents Authority has claimed its proposal to nearly double fees real estate agents pay to be licensed are a reasonable reflections of its costs.The authority which came into power in November has received more than 700 complaints against r
The Real Estate Agents Authority has claimed its proposal to nearly double fees real estate agents pay to be licensed are a reasonable reflections of its costs.
The authority which came into power in November has received more than 700 complaints against real estate agents in the industry and released 250 decisions.
It has forecast it needs to increase its income from $2.82 million a year to $6.63 million next year, and has proposed to raise real estate agents levies from $495 a year to $760.
The Real Estate Institute of New Zealand yesterday said that increase could not be supported but Real Estate Agents Authority chairwoman Kristy McDonald QC said it was committed to keeping costs sustainably low.
“The forecast increase in costs reflects the high number of complaints, the amount of work required to manage them and the requirements of the legislation. We are confident we have the balance right,” Ms McDonald said.
"The authority is the only licensing and complaints body of its type in New Zealand, fully third party funded, with wide ranging responsibilities and a requirement to repay government for the costs of setting up and implementing the new regulatory regime. Drawing comparisons to other regulatory regimes would therefore be difficult.”
According to Ms McDonald, the Real Estate Institute ’s comments yesterday that the complaints it received had dropped from 55 a week to 14 were incorrect.
But Real Estate Institute of New Zealand chairwoman Rosanne Meo told NBR the figures had come from material provided by the Real Estate Agents Authority.
