“Integrity is choosing courage over comfort.” Brené Brown
“It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.” — Sir Edmund Hillary
Whitfields provides property administration services as the appointed Managing Agent, to over 420 community schemes throughout Gauteng and the Western Cape. In some Sectional Title schemes, we also act as an Executive Managing Agent in terms of the Sectional Titles Schemes Management Act Regulations Annexure 1 Management Rule 28, where we perform the functions and exercise the powers that would otherwise be performed and exercised by elected trustees. We also provide Estate Management Services to over 40 schemes.
Whilst we operate our business in compliance with all the current legislation applicable to the property management industry, there are many people and companies out there offering their services as a Managing Agent that do not.
Scheme executives and owners alike need to be aware of the legislative requirements for a Managing Agent to legally operate, to ensure that the Managing Agent that the scheme appoints is compliant, and that the scheme executives have fulfilled their fiduciary duty of care when it comes to the appointment of a Managing Agent.
The requirements of the most recently promulgated legislation, being the Property Practitioners Act (PPA), which governs and regulates the property industry and in particular regarding the appointment of a Managing Agent to administer a community scheme, are onerous and one of its objectives is to protect the consumer’s interests.
The STSMA and the Community Schemes Ombud Service Act defines a Managing Agent as being any person (or company) who provides scheme management services to a Body Corporate for reward whether monetary or otherwise, including any person who is employed to render such services. The Property Practitioners Act and its Regulations defines a Managing Agent as a property practitioner, including any person who for remuneration manages a property on behalf of another, and references PMR 28 of Annexure 1 of the STSMA Regulations for the definition of a Managing Agent appointed to manage a community scheme.
In recent discussions between the National Association of Managing Agents (NAMA), of which Whitfields is a registered member of many years standing, and the Property Practitioners Regulating Authority (PPRA), it was stated to NAMA by the Regulator that every Managing Agent and its directors must be registered as Property Practitioners (PP), and both the company and each of the directors of the company must hold a Fidelity Fund Certificate (FFC) issued by the PPRA. Without a FFC a Managing Agent is not entitled to act or to get paid, and the CSOS have also clarified in a document that a Managing Agent must be registered with the PPRA and have a FFC.
The FFC provides the necessary financial protection for a community scheme’s funds were a Managing Agent to be involved in any fraudulent or financial impropriety. Managing Agents must keep a trust account unless exempt by PPA regulation 2.6 which provides that “A managing agent shall not be required to operate a trust account in respect of a body corporate where the funds of that body corporate are held in a bank account opened in the name of the body corporate concerned in terms of section 21(4)(a) of the Sectional Titles Schemes Management Act 8”
Whitfields is registered with the PPRA and has been issued with the requisite FFC, as are the directors of the company, and thus has a duty of care to act in terms of all guiding legislation, and to ensure that any money belonging to a community scheme is protected as required. We will always try to act with integrity and in the best interests of the community scheme, despite the insistent demands at times to do otherwise.
