Ghana’s Works and Housing Ministry intends to inject professionalism into the country’s real estate sector through the introduction of the Real Estate Authority Bill, 2016. Kwaku Agyeman-Mensah, Works and Housing Minister revealed the ministry intention to the nation’s Parliament.
The proposed bill seeks to regulate the Real Estate Agency practice and commercial transactions in real estate including the rentals and leasing of real estate, purchase, the sale, and related fixed assets as well as real estate practitioners and agents.
According to Minister Mensah, the bill also seeks to prohibit real estate cash payments transactions so as to provide a detailed trail of record that will provide a track record of the real estate transaction and persons linked to the real estate business. The records will ease tax headache and also minimise money laundering. Capturing and keeping trail of records will apply to individual landlords who seeks to sell or lease their property for income. The benefit will apply on the sector and on the vulnerable buyer.
David Tetteh Assumeng, Works and Housing Committee Chairman, says that, once the bill has been passed into law, it will not only ensure improvement in the sector, but it will as well offer employment opportunity in other sectors whereby the real estate sector will serve as a catalyst to boost the economic activities that will benefit the nation as a whole.
Additionally, the bill will as well enable Agency to introduce a high degree of integrity and sanity into the Real Estate agency practice which is expected to diminish the fraudulent and unfair practices in manner that no artificial pricing or multiple sales will be linked to have been the bane of the industry. On the other hand, the bill will as well play an important role of mobilizing and optimizing revenue collection on real estate transactions which will accustom to the benefit of the government of Ghana.
The real estate sector has been acknowledged to be the main source of revenue, thus such an important industry cannot operate unregulated at the wrong side of the law and this will immensely inspire lots of malpractices, an activity described to rob off one hard earned money. The proposed real estate bill is expected to curb such malpractices in the sector that have been going on for years now.
