Stolen property

How can a flat be sold quickly and without hassle? Paradoxically,  it might better to avoid real estate agencies. Why? Because some of them are keen to advertise homes which are not theirs to offer
Zuzanna Wiak

According to the Polish Real Estate Federation (PFRN), only 16 pct of agents admit that clients looking to sell a property approach professional agencies straight away. As many as 84 pct of agents believe that sellers come to them only after making unsuccessful attempts to find buyers on their own. This usually takes between three months and half a year. I can probably be counted among this group, even though I did not wait to turn to the agents for quite as long. After looking for a buyer for about a month, I decided to contact a few agents, who were supposed to help me sell my flat. There are currently app. 15,700 licensed real estate agents. However, there might be many times more people working in agencies and benefiting from the transactions concluded on the basis of the licences of their superiors. For a few years there has been some talk about withdrawing these licences. Last year the Ministry of Economy prepared a bill entitled: 'On Limiting Administrative Barriers for Citizens and Businesses'. According to the PFRN - the largest association of real estate agents (with app. 3,500 members) - the new regulations would mean "the liquidation of the agent as a profession through the withdrawal of the professional licences currently in force". The federation has since started a campaign to retain the licence. As is argued on their website, the aim of their activities is to "ensure the correct development of the Polish real estate market by providing top quality services," and mandatory licences are of course supposed to help this process along. It so happened that one of the Warsaw agencies - a licensed member of the federation - wanted to sell our flat. But in spite of its membership, its working methods leave a lot to be desired. In the week when we were supposed to meet a representative of the company, we had already had a few meetings with other agents. Before we could meet him though, it came to our attention that an advertising portal had advertised our flat as being for sale. But when we opened the webpage, it turned out that it featured the logo of the company whose representative we had yet to meet. The offer had simply been copied and pasted from one of the other portals - and poorly copied at that: the pixels in the photos of the flat brought to mind maggots wriggling around inside the screen. We demanded that the advert be taken down immediately from all trade portals and the internet site of the agency. Because all of this happened on Friday evening, the false information that the above-mentioned agency was displaying appeared on these websites for the whole weekend. And on Monday the announcement was still there! After a slightly unpleasant conversation with our agent, our offer was removed from the advertising portals. However, it was still visible on the website of the agency itself. We had to wait two more days for it to be removed completely. This is why I would like to remind all real estate agents that according to the property management act a contract must be signed between the owner and an agent before the latter undertakes any activities aimed at concluding a transaction.  According to Home Broker, 604 proceedings against dishonest agents have been started by the professional accountability committee in the last 12 years. A total of 346 agents were punished for inappropriate practices, but only eight had their licences rescinded. It is against the law to publish photos of properties, or to collect or make information about them available or organise meetings with potential buyers before signing a contract. The above example shows that neither membership of the federation nor a licence are guarantees of "top quality" service. And this is why the debate about the legitimacy of mandatory licences is one that is both necessary and timely.