Cooling Off Period and Other Changes ??

As of August 2021 the British Columbia Financial Services Act or BCFSA took  sole autjhority over real estate aagents in the proivince. Realtors were no longer self governing. Instead, the BCFSA became the authority over real estate eucation, licensing,all investigations and disipline of realtors . This included fines and revoking of a licence if the siitutation warranted it. The BCFSA has the authority to make rules as to how real estate licenseees conduct their business. There mandate is to protect consumers from undue loss or unfair market conduct on the part of licences and to  try and make a more level playing field for consumers. In order to accomplish this their have been a number of directives as to how realtors represent and work for the consumer.

Home Buyer Rescission Period ( HBRP)

The Home Buyer recission Period is also known as the "cooling off" period. This will allow homebuyers to rescind a contract to purchase residential real estate within 3 business days and cannot be waived by either the seller or buyer or their representatatives. Saturdays ,Sundays and Statuatory holidays do not count in the 3 days. It will begin the next business day after final acceptance of an offer.If the buyer recinds the offer within the 3 business days without justification a penalty of .25@ of the purchase price will be owing to the seller. The thinking behind this cooling of period is to reduce the number of subject free offers made in a multi offer scenario.This will not run concurrently with other conditions of the offer. If a buyer wants to have access to the home in this cooling off period for a home inspection it must be agreed upon in the offer.

In my opipion if this was meant to slow the market down ,it was to little to late. Higher interest rates and inflation have done that without government interference in the marketplace.

Direction Regarding Presentation of Offers

To give the seller's agent ample time to market a property and increse the chance of more than one buyer making a offer, a date and time would be set for offer presentation.This was not as effective as it was meant to be ,because along would come a  pre-emptive offer or bully offer. When  the appointed time and day arrived, the property would already be sold. As a buyers's agent this was extremely,flustrarting for buyer and agent alike.

To stop this  practice of bully offers the BCFSA introduced

Irrevocable Direction Regarding Presentation of Offers 

This is a direction  signed by the seller as to the date and time an offer can be presented to the seller. It is irrevocable. Meaning, the seller or the agent cannot present or review offers until the set tiome and date.When market activity slows down this is really not necessary.

Disclosure of Remuneration

I like to call this the"no surprises " disclosure. The seller is informed for each offer and counter offer the amount of  commissions that are to be paid and to whom. Also if there is a rferral involved it is stated here as well.

Prohibition on the Purchase of residential  Property by Non -Canadians

This ban came into effect January 2023. It was mainly a political move with too many exceptions to mention here. As a real estate agent you must do your due diligence and know your client.