Worried by the unwholesome and get-rich -quick syndrome amongst estate agents in the country, a front line Lagos-based estate surveyor and valuer, Mr. Musibau Ayodele Belo said last week that estate gency is fast becoming the twin brother of the 419 industry. “Look around you and you will discover that every riff raff, who can hardly tell his right hand from his left hand, is an estate agent. Every unemployed and unemployable person and everyone who cannot find work within their own profession, sets up as estate agents,” he said.

Mr. Belo who is a household name in plant and machinery valuation in the country, decried the unregulated practice of estate agency in Nigeria. According to him, this scenario “allows too much scope for those worse than armed robbers to thrive”.

Vanguard Homes & Property recalls that early this year, a group of aggrieved tenants numbering about 80 persons who alleged that they were duped of various sums of money, besieged No. 5 Ogundare Street, Oke-Odo, Abule–Egba, a Lagos suburb and threatened to burn down the building. The protesters who came with cans of fuel to set the building ablaze, alleged that the owner of the property connived with some developers to defraud them collectively of over N10 million which they paid for different flats in the building.

Such ugly incidents might have precipitated the views canvassed by Mr. Belo at the induction of 163 newly licenced estate surveyors and valuers in Lagos.

Speaking on the core values of estate surveyors and valuers, Mr. Bello charged the new surveyors to ensure that “the level of integrity with which you handle public affairs in your care must never fall below what is expected of you”

“It is sacrilege and an abomination to mishandle clients’ funds. A lot of clients funds will come under your care either as income from their properties or funds for their property development proposals. You may find that some or maybe, a lot of your senior professional colleagues are more interested in estate agency than any other aspect of our profession. The reason is clear enough, there is quick and easy money to be made from estate agency in Nigeria and for the unscrupulous amongst us, it is fast becoming the twin brother of the 419 industry,” he said.

He enjoined them to “keep a dignified distance from the shambles of estate agency practice in Nigeria by ensuring that your role as an estate agent of a property flows naturally from your other functions as the estate surveyor and valuer in charge of the property”.

Mr Bello listed some of the core values which he wants estate surveyors and valuers to imbibe.

*You must always act with integrity and give only independent and impartial advice, and act in the best interest of your clients always. Never put your own gain above the welfare of your clients or others to whom you have a professional responsibility

*You must always be honest and trustworthy in all you do

*You must act promptly, diligently and with due care and skill on your clients’ instructions and within the guidelines clearly established with the clients.