Regulation and What is the RICS?

Regulation is an important requirement for all professions and real estate is no different.  There are trade bodies within a Country and there is a professional body that has global standing and recognition.  The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) is a global body covering all continents and has over 134,000 members.  There are quantity surveyors, building surveyors, valuation surveyors and general practice surveyors.  Real estate agents come under general practice surveyors.  Someone who is qualified with the RICS are allowed to call themselves Chartered Surveyors and there are three grades, Associate, Member and Fellow.  Fellow being the most senior and highest standard of Chartered Surveyor.  

Ethics & standards

The RICS is a professional body with governance, ethics, standards and practices.  The RICS regulates firms and individuals.  The public can make a complaint about a Chartered Surveyor and it will be independently investigated and reviewed.  Chartered Surveyors have to undertake continuing professional development each and every year.  That means they have to undertake on-going training and learning to maintain their qualification.  There are people who went to university, studied and qualified in real estate and dedicate their lives to practising as a Chartered Surveyor.

Why does regulation matter?

An obvious question would be why would a client, customer or the public care if a company is regulated or not?  Without regulation there is no control on the activities and behaviours of the company.  Without regulation you have no recourse.

The next question is what type of body and regulation is best?  In reality all professional bodies are a good thing.  Some operate as a trade body and are there to look after their members, others are there to protect the public.  The RICS is a professional body that is there to uphold standards and protect the public.  It offers client money protection, requires firms to hold professional indemnity insurance, and you cannot have conflicts of interest.  The conflicts of interest point mean an RICS firm can only act for buyer or seller.  But can act for the buyer or the seller.  One can find trade bodies do not allow someone to hold out acting for the buyer and you can find a smokescreen that the brokers interests are served and not their clients.  An RICS firm has to act in the interests of their client.

What does a global body offer?

By having global standing a professional body has an ability to give credibility to all its members where ever they are practicing.  Equally it means that holders of the professional body designations can be used around the World, offering opportunity to gain employment around the world with a recognised qualification.    The broad range of disciplines that sits under the RICS umbrella gives a wide scope for a wide range of interests and skillsets to qualify in.  It would be a beneficial route to have trade bodies so similarly recognised.  Rather than having a trade body with only local recognition that cannot be used in any other Country it has to be better to look to raise the standards with professional body and affiliation to trade bodies in other Countries.  This would give greater opportunity to Caymanians gaining real estate brokerage qualification and wanting to work outside of Cayman.  For investors and occupiers coming to Cayman having confidence in recognizing the professional qualifications gives them reassurance on the quality of service along with ethics and standards the qualification portrays.

MyRealtor’s vision on training and development of real estate in Cayman

With CaribbeanMGT Ltd real estate broking arm, MyRealtor, we are trying to build an English estate agency where everyone in the company works for the good of the client.  It is all about service and delivery for our clients and customers.  With RICS regulation we can only be on one side of the transaction, acting for the buyer or the seller.  We can offer our services to buyers to ensure they are guided and informed all the way along their transaction from finding their desired property through to closing.