Uniformity for Buyers Advocate License

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In this podcast, Kevin Turner from Real Estate Talk interviews Ben and asked him about the issue that we have in our property industry across Australia: The lack of a uniform Buyers Advocate license. Here’s a snippet of the interview:

“Kevin: I want to take this subject one step further. I’m talking now to the chair of PIPA, which is the Property Investments Professionals of Australia, Ben Kingsley. He’s also from Empower Wealth. Ben, thank you for your time. I wanted to ask you specifically about what seems to me to be a lack of uniformity with licensing across Australia when it comes to buyer’s agents.

Ben: You’re right, Kevin. There was the COAG, which is basically the counsel to try and uniform these types of things that tried to look at uniformity amongst real estate agents. They fit a working together, and they’ve actually abandoned that project, which is really disappointing from a property investment perspective. When you’re talking about buyer’s agents and the roles that they play, it’s an absolutely critical role in the negotiations to secure the property on behalf of their investor clients. What we’re seeing is some buyer’s agents who may be licensed in one state and looking to work in other states. That’s obviously in breach of the licensing act in that state, so it’s concerning for us.

Kevin: I could imagine it would be because I’m looking at your charter, and it says that you have formed to represent and raise the professional standards of all operators involved in property investment. It seems to me there’s a wide gap there in terms of protection for consumers…”