Will regulations be hit by more delays?

WILL THE PSRA – the Property Services Regulatory Authority – fall victim to the Government’s cull of quangos, likely to be announced today?

After all, the body has been living in comfort in one of Navan’s best office blocks for over four years now, with a staff of eight and no real job to do – at an estimated cost to the Exchequer of €738,000 this year alone. A likely candidate for the chop, you might think.

But Ed Carey of the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland (SCSI) thinks it’s unlikely: the Property Services Regulation Bill (2009), which will give the authority its legal footing, is likely to be law before Christmas.

Meetings on how it will set about licensing property people have been going ahead as scheduled.

And the PSRA is already working on what it says is its priority – establishing and publishing a property price register (ready by June at the latest, says its chief, Tom Lynch, above).

The plan to set up a body to police the property industry was first mooted back in 2005, at the height of the property boom: why it took another six years for legislation to give it teeth to be drafted and (nearly) enacted is anybody’s guess. At any rate, if it survives today’s purge, the Authority will have the power to licence everyone – auctioneers, letting agents and property management agents and so on – providing property services in Ireland, replacing the existing District Court-based licensing system.

After all this time, the industry isn’t clear exactly how it will work. Agents are worried that a compensation fund for people wronged by the industry – to be paid for by levies on agents – will be punitive, at a time when most firms are suffering losses.

On the other hand, consumers might be a tad sceptical about how effective the new body will be, given what we all know now about the effectiveness of the country’s regulatory bodies.

Watch this space.