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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 3 Hansard (13 March) . . Page.. 997 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

reprimanding an agent;

imposing an enforceable undertaking;

imposing conditions on a person's practice;

disqualifying a person for a specified period;

disqualifying a person from being involved in the direction, management or conduct of the business of a licensee;

imposing a monetary amount to be paid to the territory or a consumer; and

suspending or cancelling a licence or registration certificate.

Members should note that the government intends that the ACT Office of Fair Trading inspectors be given power to serve spot fines on agents who have committed an offence under the proposed act. These offences will be prescribed by regulation as penalty notice offences in consultation with industry and consumer groups.

Stronger enforcement measures have been introduced to ensure the integrity of agents' trust accounts, and agents who provide financial investment advice to people intending to buy real estate will now be required to provide specified information or warnings to consumers in circumstances where they are providing general financial advice as an incidental part of selling real estate. Regulations will prescribe the necessary information and warnings.

New offences have been included in the bill. The bill makes it an offence to quote unrealistically high or low estimated prices for real estate. In the past, sellers have been misled by an expectation of obtaining a higher price than was reasonable. Buyers have been out of pocket, due to payment of finance and inspection fees, in the expectation that the property might sell at the lower price quoted by the agent. Now the Commissioner for Fair Trading can require an agent to justify the estimated selling price of residential property.

Agency agreements between agents and sellers must now be in writing; oral agreements will no longer be acceptable. Sellers of properties will be protected from being disadvantaged by unscrupulous agents. This measure will also afford protection in some cases for agents where instructions might not be entirely clear cut. This measure will enable home owners to better understand their rights and obligations under agency agreements.

Licensees must now disclose any relationship with a person to whom the agent refers a client or prospective buyer or benefits that might occur to them through a real estate transaction, aside from commissions, in dealings with their clients. This would include benefits received from a financier, a legal practitioner or another real estate agent. This reform will clean up instances of kickbacks and other benefits obtained by agents without the knowledge of clients. In addition, agents can no longer obtain a beneficial interest in a property that they are selling on behalf of a client without the consent of the Commissioner for Fair Trading.

The regulatory burden for agents will be lightened by granting greater flexibility in the keeping of accounting records and facilitating the better management of multi-agency businesses. The Commissioner for Fair Trading will now be able to grant an exemption

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