“The Regulation on the Amendment of the Regulation on Real Estate Trade” prepared by the Ministry of Customs and Trade was published in the Official Gazette dated 14.10.2020 and numbered 31274 and some changes are made in terms of the obligations of the companies and enterprises providing real estate consultancy.
With these amendments, many changes have occurred in terms of real estate trade and the most important innovation that has come into our lives is that the real estate trade can only be performed by the enterprises which have an authorization certificate and their contracted enterprises and the transfer of such authorization certificate is definitely not possible. This mentioned authorization certificate can be issued, renewed and canceled by the Provincial Directorate of the location of the enterprise through the Information System. According to the provision added to the Article 6 of the Regulation, in addition to the conditions mentioned above to provide an authorization certificate, it will be necessary for the responsible real estate consultant to be over 18 years, have at least high school diploma and have sufficient knowledge of real estate consultancy. In summary, we can say that people who do not meet these conditions and do not have such authorization certificate cannot become real estate consultants. In case the authorization certificate of an enterprise is canceled, the authorization contracts valid as of the date of cancellation will also be deemed terminated. Moreover, with the provision added to the Article 9 of the Regulation, it is regulated that in case of cancellation of an authorization certificate, the enterprise that had this certificate, its contracted enterprise, other enterprises of the owner of this enterprise or its contracted enterprises and the enterprises which they represent cannot be granted an authorization certificate for 1 year from the date of cancellation. We can say that this situation constitutes a serious penalty.
Moreover, another innovation that came into our lives with the Article 12 of the New Regulation is that the online advertisements are conditioned. From now on, for the advertisements to be published on the internet, the publication of these advertisements will be terminated within three days following the expiry date of the mentioned authorization agreement, the issues contrary to the authorization agreement cannot be included in any way and the name, title, province, district, neighborhood, parcel etc. information of the enterprise should be included legibly. After this point, it will not be possible for consultants or offices that cannot obtain authorization with a valid authorization agreement to market real estates on the internet. Moreover, the way of performing an inspection upon the complaints to be made to the Ministry for the announcements that do not meet the necessary conditions made possible and various administrative fines are also stipulated for those who do not comply with the rules brought by the Regulation.
In addition, the service fee to be entitled to for buying and selling cannot exceed 4% of the sale price and the service fee to be entitled to for renting cannot exceed the rental amount for a month. However, in case other services such as reporting, market research of current values, rental price research, consultancy are also provided with buying and selling and renting, only a sole service fee could be received although another authorization contract is also made. This fee cannot be more than the amount of buying-selling or renting service fee and it will be entitled to be received as a result of providing this service which is subject to the authorization contract. In addition, the service fee to be entitled to for buying and selling cannot exceed 4% of the sale price and the service fee to be entitled to for renting cannot exceed the rental amount for a month. However, in case other services such as reporting, market research of current values, rental price research, consultancy are also provided with buying and selling and renting, only a sole service fee could be received although another authorization contract is also made. This fee cannot be more than the amount of buying-selling or renting service fee and it will be entitled to be received as a result of providing this service which is subject to the authorization contract.
With all of these new regulations, the principles and rules to be complied with in real estate trade are expanded with the new Regulation that came into force and it is obvious that the contracts such as the Bargain and Sale Brokerage Agreements, the Leasing Intermediary Agreements, the Service Partnership Agreements will be formed with more stringent elements.