December 15th 2023
As an industry we have been operating under the Real Estate and Business Brokers Act (REBBA) for a little over 20 years now. And before that, the previous Act governing our industry was rolled out in 1946. It’s been a long time.
The current Act – Trust in Real Estate Services Act (TRESA) is really a re-vamping of REBBA. And while REBBA had a lot of work bringing the industry up to current practices with issues like electronic transfer of funds, electronic signatures, virtual offices, teams and so on, the main thrust of TRESA is consumer protection and best practices.
The new Act is being rolled out in three phases. The first, already in effect, among other things, saw the creation of Personal Real Estate Corporations for salespeople (PREC). Allowing salespeople to enjoy corporate tax advantages which accountants and lawyers have enjoyed for some time.
But the real thrust of the new Act is Phase II, which came into effect December 1st, 2023. It involves sweeping changes to the way real estate is practiced, especially when it comes to agency issues, multiple representation and disclosures.
In anticipation of the changes, both RECO, our supervising body and OREA, our trade organization, have been offering a number of training sessions, by way of video, printed page, live seminars, podcasts and so on. And, on a local level we felt it best to roll out a training program of our own.
The result was a 3 1/2 hour training session which we held here in our training centre. First came a catalogue style booklet, supported by a power point presentation. Also support documents which included 3 mandatory documents produced by RECO and a number of new and revised forms provided by OREA.
To accommodate our people, and agents from other brokerages who decided to join the sessions, we offered five repeat classes. Running either from 10:00am to 1:30pm or 2:00pm to 5:30pm with a very short break in the middle. And that’s one of the great things about the layout of our facility. Our 50’s diner is right adjacent to our training centre, so we could simply pop next door for a hit of butter tarts, cookies, muffins, squares and whatever.
All in all I think the training went very well. Over 100 people participated. A big thank you to Deb Quirk who typed her way through pages of written manuscript. To Megan Beam, our marketing director who converted all that text into a very attractive and functional workbook and to Jim Holiko, IT Director who converted the whole presentation to power point.
So, that’s it for training, for now. But to accommodate the changes a host of new forms and revisions will need to be implemented. Stay tuned for training ahead.
