Our very own Deon Terblanche recently (13 July 2011) presented a keynote talk on the implications of the Consumer Protection Act (the Act) for estate agents. This was at an information session on the Act held by the Institute of Estate Agents of South Africa (IEASA) in Wilderness at the Wilderness Beach Hotel.
Here’s a nice little piece written by one of own property consultants about her thoughts after the keynote:
“Let’s be honest. When I first heard that I would have to spend a Wednesday morning attending a seminar on the Consumer Protection Act – yet again – I wasn’t exactly thrilled.
Here we go again, I thought. Hopefully I will get through this one alive and won’t gnaw through my wrist from boredom halfway through it. I couldn’t think of a worse way to spend my time than to listen to a long and boring new piece of legislation that was going to be presented to me by a person who probably didn’t understand the act, let alone be able to present it.
The seminar was organised by the Institute of Estate Agents of South Africa of the Garden Route. To myself, and I bet a few other fellow estate agents as well, the seminar was actually very interesting and was presented in a way that was very understandable. Thinking that I would come out of it more confused than when I went in, this was a very pleasant surprise.
Congratulations to Deon Terblanche of our offices for getting something right that his predecessors before him couldn’t: conveying very important information in an understandable format. This act has a lot of implications on how estate agents will do business in future. Yes, my initial thoughts about the act, and I believe that a lot of people would agree, was not positive at all. On second thought, though, the Consumer Protection Act is actually a good thing. All agents will be now be forced to give a new standard of professional service to their clients. As if we really needed to be reminded.
Maybe now after all these years the public will start viewing agents as property professionals and we will then be respected, and the selling of property will finally be regarded as a proper profession.”
Written by Annemarie Terblanche… who managed to win a bottle of wine at the seminar!
Annemarie winning the bottle of wine at the IEASA Seminar on 13 July 2011
