Certification

For a second consecutive year, the ACAIQ is making a tool available to its members on its Web site home page (http://www.acaiq.com), enabling them to check on the status of their certificate renewal application for 2003. Simply enter your certificate number in the appropriate space. Various messages may appear depending on the status of your file. You will immediately know if your application has reached the Certification Department, if your certificate has been renewed or if it has been delayed for any reason. In the latter case, instructions will appear on screen to enable the real estate broker or agent concerned to remedy the situation quickly.

The REBA prescribes that every agent is assigned to an establishment and must report there.

The people responsible for our road network at the Ministère des Transports noted that many real estate signs were erected within the roads’ right-of-way. Some real estate brokers or agents have had their signs disappear shortly after erecting them and have filed complaints with the police.

You can’t talk about the Directors’ role without referring to the role of the Board of Directors itself. Whether it is the Board of the Association des courtiers et agents immobiliers du Québec or that any other company or corporation (legal person), the role of a board of directors is to advise. The ACAIQ Board, for its part, works to ensure the Association’s continuity and, in so doing, has very specific responsibilities under the law.

At the ACAIQ, the Board of Directors is responsible for hiring the Association’s President and CEO and for ensuring that this individual carries out the main strategic directions set by the Directors while fulfilling his obligations under the law. The Board therefore acts as an advisor that establishes the framework in which the Association will operate and the conduct it will adopt.

Directors should be people who have insight into the practice of real estate brokerage and whose actions are consistent with the Association’s public protection mission and the practice of real estate brokerage. They must anticipate where real estate brokerage is going and suggest tools to adapt practices to current times, including appropriate regulations and forms, continuing education, etc. Directors must make sure that the rules of professional ethics are clearly understood and followed by real estate brokers and agents.

On several occasions already, the Board of Directors has ratified major strategic plans extending over several years that identified short and mid-term directions to guide the Association towards its stated objectives. For example, it was the Directors who decided to put emphasis on continuing education as a way to help real estate agents improve their practice. They also chose to help members embrace technology by developing the acaiq.com website, the Extranet Synbad as well as real estate brokerage e-forms.

The role of the Directors is not to manage the Association’s internal affairs, but rather to ensure that the Association’s finances are being properly managed. The Board has been faced with tough decisions at times, including a major raise in annual fees in 2000, intended to give the Association increased visibility. Like previous media campaigns, the major television campaign currently airing 35 information capsules on the TVA network, is one example of what this increase has enabled us to do.

The ACAIQ has now become a key player in the field of real estate brokerage, in the eyes of both the public and the media. This has had all sorts of repercussions on the organization, due in part to a major increase in the number of calls from the public and from real estate brokers and agents. This led Directors to accept major changes in administrative procedures, including the creation of the Assistance Service, a first for our type of organization. This move has proven very profitable by considerably reducing response times and allowing quick resolution of professional disputes.

Additionally, it is the Board of Directors that appoints the Association’s syndic and assistant syndics. This power of appointment necessarily entails a power of removal. However, the Board may not intervene in any way in the internal management of the Office of the Syndic, unless there are obvious signs that the latter’s management is deficient.

In a memo issued on February 10, 2004, the ACAIQ informed its members that effective January 1, 2005, brokerage of loans secured by immovable hypothec will be removed from the field of application of the Real Estate Brokerage Act and come under the Act respecting the Distribution of Financial Products and Services.

Starting this month, the Professional Inspection Department offers startup sessions for all new chartered real estate brokers. These sessions are replacing the first inspection that used to be done at the broker’s establishment in the year his certificate was issued.

In order to provide beginning brokers with the tools and advice they need quickly, these startup sessions will be given to several brokers at once and will be facilitated by an inspector. These sessions will be given in an informal atmosphere using a format that promotes exchanges and focuses on real-life scenarios on these major themes: setting up and maintaining records and registers, managing trust accounts, conflicts of interest, disclosure notices to be completed before any commitment, disclosure of compensation agreements, and compensation methods.

All new brokers will be invited to attend a startup session, at their convenience, in lieu of what used to be the first inspection visit.

For more information on date availability, please contact the Professional Inspection Department at:(450) 462-9800, ext. 476 or 1 800 440-7170

One major finding has come out of the meeting between the management of Association des courtiers et agents immobiliers du Québec (ACAIQ), the Quebec Federation of Real Estate Boards and the twelve real estate boards, held in September to review the recommendations contained in Finance Minister Yves Séguin’s Report on the Application of the Real Estate Brokerage Act. All share a common position on the great majority of the government’s recommendations.

Me Claude Barsalou, Secretary of the ACAIQ, announces that the Board of Directors will soon have to vote on amendments proposed to the By-law of the Association des courtiers et agents immobiliers du Québec. These amendments are aimed at clarifying the terms and conditions under which certificates are issued, renewed, cancelled or reinstated in cases where a person has been found guilty or has pleaded guilty to a criminal offence that may be related to the activity of chartered real estate broker in the five years preceding the application, unless a pardon has been granted.

You are already aware of your obligation to complete a notice of disclosure to disclose the existence of any conflict of interest in a real estate transaction, whether in the performance of your duties or not (section 22 of the Real Estate Brokerage Act). However, real estate brokers and agents sometimes have trouble completing this notice of disclosure, especially when it comes to the identity of the intended contracting party and the documents to be transmitted to the ACAIQ. To help you identify the intended contracting party, we have added the following to section II of the form: “Identify the contracting party to whom you must disclose your quality as certificate holder and not the person with whom you have a connection”.

You must transmit a copy of the duly completed and signed notice of disclosure as well as a copy of the promise to purchase and its attachments to the ACAIQ as soon as possible, i.e. before the date of signing of the notarized act. The purpose of the disclosure is to create a level playing field for all parties; it is therefore crucial that the intended contracting party receive the information before the promise to purchase.

Failure to complete a notice of disclosure can have disciplinary and civil repercussions. For a clearer understanding of your obligations, we suggest reading the following articles:
Who is this mysterious prospective contracting party?, ACAIQ Magazine / October 1999
Cottage, lake, rosebushes Goodbye to all that!, ACAIQ Magazine / September 1994
When agents sell their own homes / ACAIQ Magazine / March 2001

All real estate brokerage forms published by the ACAIQ are available now via the Extranet on the acaiq.com Web site, at the attractive cost of $79 per annual subscription. The introduction of the “ACAIQ Forms” online service coincided with the launch of the Association’s Extranet, a cyberspace for the exclusive use of real estate brokerage certificate holders. In addition to e-forms, the site will feature various member services as well as an e-Store, the details of which will follow shortly.

Developed jointly with Telus Business Solutions, “ACAIQ Forms” will enable users to generate forms based on their needs, to enter information in the appropriate fields and to save the forms on their own computer or a server. They can also modify, email and print the forms in an unlimited number of copies, on the paper of their choice.

E-forms are automatically personalized with the user’s name, enabling brokers and agents to present high-quality documents to their clients. This software provides significant savings compared to the current cost of traditional forms.

“ACAIQ Forms” uses Windows, Acrobat Approval and Explorer 5.0 technologies. It can be used in one of two ways: the Connected version requires a permanent Internet connection and the installation of Adobe Acrobat Reader, a free software package; the Standalone version requires the installation of Adobe Acrobat Approval software, which is not free but, in addition to the functions of the Connected version, allows you to save a form being edited locally on a workstation, to modify it, duplicate it or simply print it without an Internet connection.