THE real estate industry wants to weed out rogue property agents who take unsuspecting clients for a ride and make off with their money.
It wants to have all housing agencies to list their agents online so that anyone will be able to check the agent's identity.
Singapore's property agents have been delivering a rising number of complaints to the Consumers Association of Singapore (Case).
And rogue agents keep turning up.
Just last week, Filipino systems engineer Armando Velasco Santillan discovered that he may have fallen victim to a cheat.
He had called a housing agent after seeing an advertisement for a Bishan flat he was keen to rent.
The agent claimed to work for PropNex, Singapore's biggest housing agency. Mr Santillan, 31, saw the flat and liked it, and paid the agent $1,800 as a deposit and advance rental.
But he never saw the agent again. He called PropNex last week, only to find out that it never had such an employee. In fact, the agency had made a police report because it had received similar complaints about the man.
Mr Santillan, who had previously rented a flat through another agent without a hitch, told The Straits Times: 'I thought all agents were the same.'
The Institute of Estate Agents (IEA) feels that starting a central registry of housing agents will help.
While the scheme is voluntary, 13 of the biggest agencies with 11,500 agents have already signed up. The IEA estimates this represents more than two-thirds of all agents.
When the scheme is launched by the middle of next month, , home buyers and sellers will be able to check on the institute's website if a particular agent is employed by the agency he claims to represent.
If an agent is sacked for unethical conduct or a crime, the system will be updated within 72 hours. Normal staff movements will be updated at least once every three months.
Housing agencies on the scheme will also be able to check if a prospective employee had got into trouble for dubious practices, something that they are now unable to do.
The real estate industry is now largely unregulated as the Government licenses housing agencies, rather than individual agents. There were 1,340 licensed agencies in March. In recent years, the industry has been an increasing source of complaints to Case. There were 672 complaints last year, up from 469 in 2004 and 447 the year before.
To raise service standards, the institute teamed up with the Singapore Institute of Surveyors and Valuers to launch an accreditation scheme last year.
The programme, designed to nudge housing agents towards getting professional qualifications, has accredited 348 individual agents so far. A total of 270 agencies - with about 6,500 agents - have also got the quality tag.
But problems persist.
Big housing agencies like PropNex, ERA Singapore and Dennis Wee Group say some agents use their companies' reputations to attract clients, but close the housing deals under a smaller company's name.
As a result, home buyers who hire an agent assuming they have the services of the bigger firms actually get less protection should the deal go awry.
PropNex chief executive Mohamed Ismail, estimates that 10 per cent of housing deals are done this way.
Institute president Jeff Foo said: 'There's no immediate remedy.' But with the registration scheme, it will be harder for rogue agents to operate.
'Anybody will be able to check whether someone is a bona fide agent,' he said.
tanhy@sph.com.sg
