Company Policy and Procedures

Company Policy and Procedures -  Charles L King & Co First National

PRIVACY

Charles L King & Co First National Echuca Vic has held a position of trust and respect in real estate practice for many years. This trust and respect has been earned by complying with the highest standards of ethics and professionalism throughout all areas in which we service client and customer needs. Retaining it requires that we must always conduct our business in line with client and customer expectations and in accordance with statutory changes. At Charles L King & Co First National ("Gary Wood Pty Ltd", "the company", "us", "we", "our") we are committed to safeguarding your privacy by ensuring their information is protected in a way that observes our own corporate values. As well as complying with the requirements of the National Privacy Principles of the Privacy Act (Cth) (1998), as amended (the "Act"). This Policy sets out the minimum procedures for safeguarding your privacy. Charles L King & Co First National has always valued the privacy of personal information. We collect personal information to offer, provide, manage and administer the real estate services we are involved in.We disclose personal information to third parties who we believe are necessary to assist us in providing the relevant services to our clients. We will endeavour to protect your personal information from loss, misuse, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. All of our staff are required to maintain the confidentiality of your personal information. If you wish to seek access to or correct the personal information we collect or disclose about you, please telephone or email our Privacy Officer on 54822111 or email clk@clk.com.au

 

NEW REAL ESTATE LEGISLATION

The major provisions of the Estate Agent and Sale of Land Acts (Amendment) Act 2003 came into operation on 1 February 2004.The amendments are designed to give greater protection to consumers when buying and selling real estate and to enhance the transparency of the auction system.

 

THE NEW RULES

Vendor bids can only be made by the auctioneer, and all such *vendor bids must be openly declared. Agents must give a written selling price estimate to vendors and the higher estimate must not exceed the lower estimate by more than 10%.* Price estimates given to prospective purchasers must not be less than the amount given by the agent to the vendor.* Advertising rebates cannot be retained by agents.* The “cooling off” period entitlement now applies to all residential private sales, regardless of price. (*Penalties for breaches of the new legislation vary from up to $24,000 for an individual to $60,000 for a corporation.) We welcome the new rules, and congratulate the Government on their introduction. They will help to restore public trust and confidence in agency practices - in particular in the auction system, and we are proud of the position we took in actively promoting and supporting the introduction of the new legislation.

 

PSYCHOLOGICALLY IMPACTED OR STIGMATIZED PROPERTIES

 

In recent years there has been an increasing amount of media interest into the role and responsibilities of vendors and their estate agents when they are offering for sale a property that may be psychologically impacted or stigmatized. Such a property may be defined as one where there has been an act or occurrence which has had no effect on the physical structure of the property, but which as a consequence of such act or occurrence may be psychologically impacted or stigmatized, e.g. a property where there has been a suicide, homicide or felony. Currently there appear to be no regulations in Victoria requiring disclosure by the vendor and/or their agents of such acts or occurrences. In the current unregulated environment, professional and public opinions vary considerably on any duty of disclosure.Some say that under privacy rules, the vendor (and therefore their selling agent) is not required and should not be required to disclose any such acts or occurrences. Others say that any history of a property which could have an emotional or negative impact on a purchaser's decision to make an offer on the property should be disclosed. There is also an argument that disclosure should only be required upon receipt of a specific enquiry from a prospective purchaser and if the purchaser is discomforted by being advised of such information that they should have the choice of either proceeding or not with making an offer, or perhaps making a lower offer. There appears to be no evidence available in Australia as to whether full disclosure would affect the value of a property.In Australia the doctrine of caveat emptor (buyer beware) may provide protection to vendors or their agents who prefer or choose not to disclose. At Charles L king & Co Fist National it is, and has always been our policy, that if we are aware of any circumstances whatsoever that may psychologically impact or stigmatize a property we are engaged to sell, we will require the vendor to allow us to make a full and frank disclosure to prospective purchasers of such circumstances.Discussion in respect to psychologically impacted and stigmatized properties can be very sensitive, delicate and emotionally traumatic, however, if a vendor is not comfortable or will not agree with our full disclosure policy we will decline to accept the listing. If you would like to discuss our Company policy in this regard you would be most welcome to contact our Managing Director Gary Wood on +61 3 54 822111 or Email at clk@clk.com.au or alteratively Ms Janine Thorp.