Realtors whose business has ceased will be able to renew it

Prague – Real estate agents who lost their business license due to non-compliance with new legal requirements will be able to restore it. They will have until the end of this year to provide additional documentation proving that they meet the conditions for this work. This is stipulated by a parliamentary amendment regarding real estate mediation, which was approved by the Senate today. It will now be sent to President Miloš Zeman for signature.

According to the law, real estate agents had to change their business from a free trade to a regulated trade by the beginning of this March. Some intermediaries needed to take an exam for the transformation. The proponents of the amendment claimed that some of them could not take the exam due to government anti-coronavirus restrictions.

Real estate agents whose free business license has lapsed will be able to notify the trade office of their regulated business after the amendment comes into effect. They will have to provide proof of their professional qualifications to the office by the end of the year. If they fail to do so, their authorization will lapse. New applicants for this work will be able to operate as free trade until the end of the year, but exclusively under real estate agencies and without the ability to offer money storage services.

At the end of January, the Ministry for Regional Development estimated that dozens of entities still did not have professional qualification, accounting for one to two percent of the total number. Proponents indicated higher numbers in mid-January, with 400 to 700 intermediaries without exams.

Originally, real estate agents were supposed to demonstrate their expertise by the beginning of last September. Legislators had already postponed the deadline by six months last April due to the coronavirus crisis.

Vladimír Zuzák, the director of the real estate agency Maxima Reality, critically views the parliamentary amendment, stating that there was enough time to pass the exam. It was anticipated from the beginning that stricter rules would lead to a certain reduction in the number of agents, he said in a press release. Zuzák also believes that the exams should have been stricter and that all intermediaries should take them in order to improve services in the real estate market. Many agents did not have to take the exam. Expertise could be proved through prescribed education or experience.