WITH complaints mounting against unfair practices of certain housing agents, the Consumers Association of Singapore (Case) has called on agents to be more transparent about the fees they charge.
They should also make clear the kind of service they provide for the fees charged.
Case president Yeo Guat Kwang said this on Saturday at a public forum on housing agents' responsibilities. He said the consumer has a full right to understand what he is paying for before he hires the agent.
Unfortunately, this has not been the case for certain buyers of Housing Board flats who chose to do so without hiring a housing agent.
Some of them were only told by the sellers' agent that they had to pay a 1 per cent fee just before they signed the deal.
A buyer who hires an agent to look for a flat for him usually pays 1 per cent commission.
This practice, highlighted by The Straits Times in April, has been subject to much debate over the past few months.
While the Institute of Estate Agents (IEA) has defended the fee - based on the amount of work that sellers' agents usually needed to do to guide the independent buyers - Case has highlighted the potential conflict of interest that arises when both the buyer and seller are represented by the same agent.
IEA's first vice-president, Mr Mohamed Ismail, told reporters on Saturday that there would be no conflict of interest if price negotiations are transparent.
Mr Yeo, however, insisted that such fees were not mandatory.
'The agents have to respect the fact that these are not mandatory fees. They have to earn the fees, not to demand the fees.'
There were 672 complaints against real estate agents last year, up from 469 in 2004 and 447 in 2003. One of the biggest reasons for this is that the industry is largely unregulated.
Currently, only housing agencies - not individual housing agents - are licensed. This means that anyone can be a housing agent as long as he can find an agency to work in.
The IEA, in a bid to weed out rogue agents, launched an online registry of housing agents in September. So far, more than 80 agencies with more than 13,000 agents have signed up. The IEA estimates that there are about 20,000 agents in Singapore.
