I refer to the judgment, as reported in the Law Report (September 2), handed down by Madame Justice Lorraine Schembri Orland which determined that an estate agent (Dhalia) had no right for estate agency fees as it had not brought about the sale and final contract for a property because the agreement had been reached without its assistance and intervention.

Without going into detail, in essence this judgement revolved around whether or not Dhalia was entitled to its brokerage commission after originally taking a client to see the property (a restaurant in this case) – the first showing of such to any potential buyer by any estate agency – but then failing to pursue the matter beyond this original meeting.

Eventually, the property was sold via the full and complete intervention and assistance of another estate agency.

Now a number of concerns arise from this judgment.

One relates to the qualifications and any certification required to undertake the post of an estate agent.

The principal argument put forward by the defendant was that Dhalia’s sales representative “had just been employed and had no experience” and did not undertake the required procedures and processes with the property owner.

Is this inexperience or is it, rather, poor pre-job training, given that the term experience is simply another name for one’s mistakes in life?

In any event, this case highlights the abject lack of any known qualification or accreditation necessary to undertake the role and function of an estate agent. But how would one obtain experience without actually performing the job? Why was this inexperienced broker not chaperoned and supervised if he had no experience?

I would like to put a hypothetical question but one directly associated with this judgment.

What would happen if, after an estate agent has advertised a property for sale and shown it to a prospective buyer (as occurred in this scenario), it was eventually sold to a private buyer without the intervention or assistance of the agency?

Should it not be a legal requirement for any seller of property to be compelled to sign an agreement with an estate agency (and not just on a sole agency basis) which is representing the seller on the sale of the property?

Also, why should the broker’s fee/commission be set at a given percentage? The amount of work involved should surely be a condition for payment of services and not be automatically determined as a percentage figure. For example, five per cent of €1 million is substantially more than five per cent of €100,000 but this massive disparity is neither commensurate with nor justified by the same amount of work undertaken.

Just a thought!