MahaRERA sets up steering committee for training and certification of real estate agents

Mumbai: The Maharashtra Real Estate Regulatory (MahaRERA) has decided to set up a steering committee that will keep in training and certification of real estate agents. It desires to bring a certain level of consistency in the practices of real estate agents, enhance knowledge, awareness of regulatory framework and practices, enforcement of code of conduct and to discourage incompetent agents, and therefore it has proposed to introduce basic capacity building and certification for real estate agents.

The said committee comprising of seven members headed by the MahaRERA founder chairman, member of Mumbai Grahak Panchayat, representative of SROs, NAR, CREBAI, technical officer MahaRERA and any other member as co-opted by the chairman, from time to time will be responsible for recommending and developing framework, structure and roadmap for real estate agents training and certification in Maharashtra along with the implementation of the same.

Furthermore, the steering committee is expected to submit a report within 30 days on it. Commenting on MahaRERA's decision, Anand Gupta chairperson, Housing and RERA committee of Builders Association of India said, "We welcome this move of MahaRERA though it has come very late. The committee will help educate all agents about their legal responsibility towards customers and developers. Moreover, it will also help improve the compliance percentage. We request all other state RERA authorities to follow MahaRERA's initiative."

Meanwhile, as of April 6, 2021, over 29,189 real estate agents are registered with the MahaRERA. The agents are an essential element of the real estate sector, who connect with allottees and promoters and facilitate most of the real estate transactions. Therefore, they need to have comprehensive understanding of the real estate transaction in order to guide the allottees and prevent disputes. So, the state RERA has mandated registration and regulation of real estate agents and documented their role.