Duties and Obligations of the Broker

CAPSULE

The new Real Estate Brokerage Act has abolished certain rules regarding the duty to have one or more managers, based on the number of brokers acting within an agency. This new Act is meant to be less interventionist regarding the management of a brokerage firm’s business.

Under this Agreement, the CREA must allow Sellers to retain the services of a broker for the Mere Posting of a property on the MLS System, without the Sellers also having to use all of the other services offered by the broker.

Many of you read the April 21 InfoLetter closely and called us for additional information on a few points you wished to clarify. To access the April 21 InfoLetter, click on the link below.

The regulations adopted under the new Real Estate Brokerage Act that has been in force since May 1, 2010 stipulate that when a broker: leaves an agency to join another agency or to work for his or her own account; ceases to work for his or her own account and joins an agency;
The client has the option to: continue dealing with the broker; continue dealing with the agency, if applicable; or terminate the brokerage contract. 

Several of you sent us comments regarding the increase in the chargeable fees appearing on that invoice. It is our role to shed light on issues such as these, and to refer you to the documents containing the information that has already been made public on this topic.

PLEASE NOTE: You have until July 31, 2010 to open a general trust account. Since the coming into force of the Real Estate Brokerage Act on May 1, 2010, all real estate or mortgage agencies and real estate and mortgage brokers acting on their own account must open a general trust account.

As provided for in the Real Estate Brokerage Act, the OACIQ Board consists of eleven (11) Directors, eight (8) of whom are elected among licence holders and the other three (3), who are neither broker, manager nor executive officer of an agency, are appointed by the Minister of Finance.

With the coming into force of the new Real Estate Brokerage Act on May 1, 2010, the ACAIQ changed its name to OACIQ, i.e. Organisme d’autoréglementation du courtage immobilier du Québec. But what exactly is the OACIQ?

Source: OACIQ

December 2010 • By opening the door to computer technologies (digitization), the new Real Estate Brokerage Act has introduced new challenges when it comes to the keeping of registers and records, making it necessary last May for the Organisme d’autoréglementation du courtage immobilier du Québec (OACIQ) to develop and issue a Normative framework for the preservation, archiving and maintenance of records and registers. Since then, several agency executive officers or brokers have raised the following question: can paper registers and records be destroyed once the documents have been digitized?

The answer is yes, as long as agencies or brokers acting on their own account follow the terms and obligations to which they are bound under various legislative instruments.

The Act to establish a legal framework for information technology states that documents required by law to be retained (such as records and registers) may be destroyed as long as they have been transferred in accordance with the requirements of the Act and the destruction is done following certain conditions.

An affiliated agent who became a broker on May 1 may act on his own account only once he meets certain qualification requirements; the main ones of these are listed below. Two situations can occur:

• Affiliated agent who became a broker without having begun the chartered broker’s course prior to May 1, 2010;
• Affiliated agent who became a real estate broker AND completed or began the chartered broker’s course prior to May 1, 2010.