20 Jan What is a mandate?
When working in real estate, a mandate is an extremely important part of your arsenal as a property practitioner. In terms of the definition provided in the Code of Conduct published by the Estate Agency Affairs Board (now called the Property Practitioners Regulatory Authority), a mandate:
“…means an instruction or an authority given to, and accepted by, an estate agent to render an estate agency service;”.
In other words, the mandate is an instruction provided by your client to undertake an estate agency service, for example, a seller gives you an instruction to sell their property. Hence, you need mandates to have property stock to sell or let. Without a mandate, you have no stock and without stock, you are going to find it very difficult to generate commission!
It is important to be aware, that in terms of Regulation 34.3.1 of the Regulations promulgated in terms of the Property Practitioners Act 22 of 2019 (which repealed the Estate Agency Affairs Act):
34.3.1 No estate agent shall –
34.3.1.1 offer, purport or attempt to offer any immovable property for sale or to let or negotiate in connection therewith or canvass or undertake or offer to canvass a purchaser or lessee therefor, unless he has been given a mandate to do so by the seller or lessor of the property, or his duly authorised agent;
Regulation 34.3.1.2 refers to requiring a mandate when undertaking any service on behalf of purchasers and lessees.
This means that, as a property practitioner, you cannot do any work for a client without a mandate. You cannot make the assumption that you have a mandate. Some property practitioners have been known to advertise properties that they have not been mandated to sell, for example when the property owner is trying to sell the property themselves, in the hope that should an interested buyer approach that property practitioner, that the practitioner would then introduce the potential buyer to the property owner. This is most certainly not allowed as you must have a mandate before commencing any work for that property owner.
The mandate must be given to you expressly, preferably in writing. In our next blog, we will discuss this in more detail.
Mandates are more fully discussed in the FETC: Real Estate programme offered by CPMD.
For more information on all of CPMD’s courses, click HERE.
Should you have any further questions, you are more than welcome to contact us.