The City of Cape Town has recently announced that stricter control measures will be introduced in an effort to curb the number of illegal estate agents signage across the Cape Metropole. These measures include a sticker system and heavier fines.
From 1 July 2007 every estate agent and auctioneer will be required to register individually with the municipality for permission to display property marketing boards on Council property. Upon registration, the City will issue a maximum of six permit stickers per agent for the year that is to be displayed on any directional board for the duration of the year (one sticker per board).
According to Bill Rawson, Chairman of Rawson Properties, the Council has been looking at stricter methods to regulate signage for some time. "Unfortunately, they did not communicate with the property industry before imposing these measures and I am concerned about the practicality of the measures, as well as the administrative burden placed on Council to impose the measures."
The administrative burden placed on Council includes registering around 6 000 estate agents operating in the Cape Metropole before the 1st of July deadline. 'Estate agents have received no direct communication from Council informing them of these new measures '“ some offices have received notices, but the rest have to rely on word-of-mouth, possible newspaper advertising or industry bodies for information.
'Whether Council has the capacity to deal with all these registrations remains to be seen,' says Rawson. He adds that so far, Council has relied on sub-contractors to impose the regulations. 'I doubt that they will be sufficient to run the administration of these new measures, as Council will require permanent staff to deal with queries, lost stickers and new registrations '“ all at an additional cost'
As far as the practicality of the new measures go, Rawson indicates that he foresees problems in terms of the amount of boards required by agents over a show house weekend. 'The By-Law states that you are allowed six boards per property on show, but with the new measures in place this will mean that estate agents will only be allowed six boards each '“ effectively meaning that an agent can only have one show house per weekend (with boards). The problem is that the practice of most of the top agents is to host a few show houses simultaneously and they employ show house sitters specifically for this purpose'
The new measures will also negatively affect the consumer, especially sellers, as they might no longer have top agents being able to host show houses on their behalf. As far as potential buyers go, Rawson adds, show houses have always been a popular method of viewing properties on show. 'Buyers like to view houses at their own leisure, without feeling obligated to hand out their information to estate agents. The Council measures will lead to a drastic decrease in the amount of show houses available for viewing, at the moment, around 4 000 show houses are hosted per month' Rawson explains that less boards will also negatively affect the previously disadvantaged community, as estate agents operating in these areas can rely on boards for advertising show houses, instead of paying for expensive newspaper coverage.
In the case of illegal boards, says Rawson, Council reserves the right to withdraw permission to display signage if an estate is found breaking the law. 'This could mean that an estate agent might become liable if someone else moves their board to an illegal position without their knowledge, and then have to fight with Council about the fairness of the charge' Rawson adds that there might also be problems in the case of stolen boards, which would mean that an estate agent will have to re-apply for stickers with the Council. Council might object to re-issuing the stickers on the grounds that they require proof of the theft to prevent over-issuing of stickers to a specific individual.
'There are numerous problems with the proposed measures and I would suggest that the best way forward would be for representatives from the property industry to sit down with Council to discuss what the best regulation method would be. We want to make sure that all estate agents operate within the Law, but not with an increased administrative burden for all parties concerned'
