The government plans to introduce new measures to regulate the real estate sector in a bid to protect innocent Kenyans from unscrupulous property agents and land brokers.
The Estate Agency (2019) Bill currently undergoing processing at the Attorney General’s office proposes, among other things, to issue stiffer penalties for rogue agents who have continued to take advantage of uninformed Kenyans. The bill aims to keep rogue dealers out of the sector in order to boost public confidence in the real estate agency practice.
Estate Agents Registration Board (EARB) yesterday said the proposed law will ensure only registered professionals are allowed to practice real estate agency in the country.
Read; What your real estate agent should do for you
Another proposal in the bill is to increase fines for persons found to be practising illegally, from the current KSh.20,000 to a minimum of KSh.1 million.
“We just received comments. We are going to ensure that any comments, issues or concerns raised are addressed before we can take the bill to Parliament, hopefully in the next one or two months,” EARB chairperson Nelly Mbugua said in Nairobi yesterday during a sensitization workshop involving real estate agents in the country.
The board said rogue dealers also operate outside tax brackets, leading to loss of revenue to the government. “No one can put a name to them or where their offices are. Unfortunately, there are also large institutions which are not registered. The penalties are so small that even if you try bringing them to book, it fails to have an impact,” Mbugua said.
The proposed law, she added, will however change how things are done in the real estate space by ensuring only professionals are involved
Source; Mediamax
