Property Occupations Act 2014 - Part Three
The biggest change for agents with the new legislation is the new listing agreements. The old form 20, form 21, form 22 and form 23 have been rolled into the new form 6.
While a lot of the form hasn't changed there have been some positive changes.
In part 4, section 2 you will note that there is no end date for continuing appointments. Open listings, commercial listings and continuing appointments no longer need an end date. This is particularly useful for property management agreements.
When you do a listing agreement for more than 2 properties this will constitute a continuous appointment. For single appointments for residential exclusive appointments you will still need an end date. The period for these listings has been increased from 60 days to 90 days.
For all appointments these can be terminated on 30 days notice. If it is a single residential exclusive appointment you are guaranteed a minimum 60 days. For example:
If the listing starts on 1 July and notice is given on 5 July then it ends on 29 August, being 60 days.
If the listing starts on 1 July and notice is given on 5 August then it ends on 3 September, being outside the 60 days and 30 days from when the notice is given.
Part 7 the commission section has changed so that you no longer have to give both a percentage and a dollar figure. You do need to be careful which box you tick in relation to when commission is paid. If you are attaching special conditions provided by ADL or REIQ then you need to tick the other box.
While they have deleted the requirement to state how you will perform the service you still need to list any restrictions on how the service will be provided. For example if no sign is to put in the front yard and then is not listed in part 4, section 4 the agreement will be void even if you never put a sign up.
Form 23, the reappointment is now contained in part 10 of the agreement. So in effect they will resign the listing agreement if you want to extend the agreement. The same rules stating that this can only be done in the last 14 days before the agreement expires still applies.
At this stage the only 2 deficiencies that we have found is there is nowhere in the agreement you can say that the exclusive converts to an open listing once it expires. This is expressly allowed in the legislation so we recommend adding a special condition to cover this situation.
There is also no provision to assign the listing agreement. We strongly recommend adding a special condition to cover this situation.
We will be conducting in house training on the changes to the law and how to prepare the new listing agreements over the next couple of months. If your office is interested in Roland attending and providing this training please contact us 1800 632 394.