This week, Nate Glubish, minister of Service Alberta, announced that the provincial government would be restructuring the Real Estate Council of Alberta.
Prior to the changes, the RECA set, regulated, and enforced standards for real estate brokerages, mortgage brokerages, property management professionals, and real estate appraisal professionals in Alberta.
The government is proposing Bill 20: Real Estate Amendment Act, which, if passed, will refocus the RECA’s purpose to licensing and regulating just the real estate sector in Alberta.
The RECA will no longer be responsible for the following services, given that they’d fall outside of their new mandate:
- Education
- Professional advice beyond regulatory information
- Promoting the real estate industry
- Setting standards beyond the minimum for licensing and transactions
The mandate change ends up leaving several industries no longer directly regulated by RECA. Real estate appraisal professionals are already self regulating through their own industry associations. For the others, the province will create 4 additional councils, who will then create and administer rules and licensing requirements for the following professionals:
- Residential real estate brokers
- Commercial real estate brokers and commercial property managers
- Residential property managers
- Mortgage brokers
Each of these 4 new councils will have 5 members—2 public members and 3 licensees from the respective industry (who will be elected to the positions by licensees of that industry)—who will serve 3-year terms.
The board of directors of the RECA itself will have a member from each of the 4 industry councils, as well as 3 public members appointed by the provincial government for a 3-year term each. Only public members will be able to serve as board chair.
Bill 20 is a follow up to a process started by the NDP government in the summer of 2018, when they hired a consultant to conduct a preliminary assessment of the RECA because of complaints the minister of Service Alberta had received about their leadership.
In January 2019, the NDP government contracted KPMG to conduct a full review into the RECA’s governance and operations. That review finished in June 2019, which subsequently led to the dismissal by the UCP government of the entire RECA and the appointment of an interim administrator, as well as ultimately to Bill 20.
