The search for a greener pasture in urban cities such as Lagos, Abuja, and Port-Harcourt is rapidly expanding, as is rural-urban migration. This has cast a favorable light on the Real Estate industry, as there is an increase in demand for the sector’s products and services in those cities.
However, despite the notable recognition towards the Real Estate sector, those who feed robustly from the sector’s proceeds are those who lack adequate knowledge, while those who spent years running around seeking the required knowledge are feeding on crumbles, and the most unfortunate part is that the professional bodies are quiet, nonchalant, and dormant about it.
The Estate Surveying and Valuation profession gained traction in 1969, when a group of qualified chartered surveyors formed the NIGERIAN INSTITUTION OF ESTATE SURVEYORS AND VALUERS as a non-profit voluntary professional organization to serve the profession’s interests in the country.
This group of people relentlessly pursued government acknowledgment, and six years later they were granted government recognition with the issue of the Estate Surveyors and Valuers (Registration, Etc.) Decree No. 24 of 1975, currently CAP E. 13 LFN 2004.
This Act established the Estate Surveyors and Valuers Registration Board of Nigeria (ESVARBON) as the profession’s regulatory authority. The Real Estate Developers’ Association of Nigeria (REDAN), the Nigerian Institute of Town Planners (NITP) and Estate, Rent and Commission Agents Association of Nigeria (ERCAAN) are other professional bodies in the Real Estate business.
The mission statement of the body ESVARBON states that the body aims to “constantly set and review standards of knowledge and skills for the practice of the profession and ensure effective regulation and control of the profession in Nigeria.” Unfortunately, that is no longer the case in today’s Real Estate professional practice.
As a graduate and a practicing Estate/Property Manager, as well as an intending Member of the Estate Surveyor & Valuer Institute, it is extremely disappointing and discouraging to me and every other formally trained Estate Management individual that the professional body that is supposed to be a protector has neglected their role and has strayed so far from their responsibility as stated in the mission and vision statement that surrounds their establishment.
This is why many unprofessional and untrained people have gained so much freedom to trample on the ethics and etiquettes of our profession, leaving the properly groomed, trained and/or duly certified individuals/entities to roam the profession like orphans. Consider how silly and disastrous it would be if an inexperienced person in an emergency room was equipped with a scalpel or a retractor.
This group of inexperienced self-proclaimed real estate agents has openly formed and expanded their own quackery perimeter of operations, devaluing and frustrating the efforts and growth of formally and appropriately trained professionals in the real estate business.
As a result, I sincerely request that the Nigerian real estate regulating organizations return to a functioning system that properly governs and protects the interests of the professionals under their cover as a matter of urgency and priority.
Thanks.
Samuel OGUNDIPE
Business Development Associate,
REALTY CORRIDOR, Abuja.
samuelogs92@gmail.com
