New trade body CIELA will be open only to individual owner-managers

The new trade body currently being formed, the Charter for Independent Estate and Letting Agents, has announced that it will be open for individual but not company memberships.

The proposed rules of entry state that CIELA will be an organisation for the individual owners of qualifying businesses, but not for the businesses themselves.

It will also, not surprisingly, ban online agents.

CIELA, in the course of being set up by software company boss Charlie Wright, says it will be “first and foremost the collective voice of independent owner-managed estate and letting agencies”.

It proposes that its rules will automatically, and legally, disqualify any employee of a corporate estate agency from joining.

Wright said: “We have already received multiple expressions of interest from people who consider themselves highly influential in the industry, applying for regional officer positions and asking to be involved to bring their years of industry experience to bear.

“Whilst CIELA appreciates these approaches, they do not qualify for membership because they are not owner-managers of their own agency businesses, but employees of corporates, or consultants to the industry.”

http://ciela.co.uk/proposed-outline-charter-membership-rules-and-qualifying-criteria/

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11 Comments

  1. Simon Bradbury

    LOL (as the kids say)…

    “We have already received multiple expressions of interest from people who consider themselves highly influential in the industry…”

    Who seriously considers “themselves”…”highly influential” ?

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    1. Chris Wood

      We all know at least one…

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  2. AgencyInsider

    This outfit is going to tie itself up in knots before it ever gets off the ground. It is already starting to sound like an extract of dialogue from the Peoples Front of Judea in Life of Brian.

    I applaud the broad motive of getting a positive message about agency out to the public but I guarantee this lot are going to c*ck it up by trying to be too clever. KISS.

    And when all is said and done you can just imagine the dialogue with Mr & Mrs Vendor –

    Agent: Here’s our leaflet about CIELA and all the good things agents do. We are members you know.

    Vendor: Oh yeah. Well the bloke down the road isn’t and he’s only going to charge us half what you want. Goodbye.

    I say this as a person who is in no way influential, except to my cat and dog. Actually, thinking about it, just the dog.

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  3. PeeBee

    Take one good idea… let the wrong person hear about it –

    et voila! 

     

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    1. smile please

      Summed up perfectly

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  4. Property Ear

    If a ‘collective voice’ for owner managed independent firms like mine, can enhance our credibility in the face of bucket shop ‘on liners’ and touting corporates, CIELA has to be a promising initiative. Don’t knock it before it gets off the ground, give it a chance – it could be a lifeline.

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    1. smile please

      Sorry what promising initiative has it shown?

      This is what we know so far

      1. Headed by an individual who SELLS software to estate agents.

      2. Founding members are made up largely of his clients.

      3. Will offer no advice or legal assistance.

      4. Only open to decision makers (better pool of individuals to sell to?)

       

      Unless i have missed something that is the only confirmed things we know.

       

      Hardly an inspiring or promising initiative, more opportunist.

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  5. Chris Wood

    It’s sad but inevitable that the vacuum created by a silent NAEA and RICS over the past few years, will try to be filled by new organisations who wish to support firms with their own members needs and agendas’.

    I still maintain that law-abiding agents of all types and business models are better off when they speak as a group and campaign as one. The NAEA was that voice but has lost its way. It can and should be that voice again. Re-join and vote to change the way the NAEA speaks for all agents. The AGM is in June.

    I wish CIELA well but, my initial reading of the rules to date seem to indicate that their wish to exclude corporate agents will allow LPEs’ to become members which if it is what CIELA intends is, of course, perfectly acceptable but does appear to contradict CIELAs’ raison d’etre.

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    1. AgentV

      I think the problem is that many people are now reluctant to join an organisation that allows one of its members to openly and very publicly ridicule and rubbish what the majority of its other members do. It makes us all look unprofessional. I deeply hope you can change what is happening Chris.

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  6. PeeWee

    All well and good, but unless I have misunderstood then the issue here is even AM could not get their plucked and oven ready captive audience of agents to unite with OTM.  I don’t disagree with the sentiment CIELA, but it is going to be a tough old slog to gain the necessary traction.  Perhaps you will get lucky and enough people who sat on the fence previously are now angry enough to actually do something about it, but shamefully it is obvious the industry is not united on anything; nothing.  A bit like Remain / Leave and Clinton / Trump; its a close run battle which only serves to segregate us further.

    OTM, whilst not perhaps a comparatively attractive and obvious winner in a three horse race would romp home in a one horse race.  It is the answer to many of the industry woes if only a temporary one and buys us all some time to make it or something better in due course.  If all agents unite and withdraw support for two portals and not one then the portal war is won and the on-liners have no where to go.

    Isn’t that what every traditional / independent high street agent wants?

    It sounds too good to be true, but is it really?

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  7. PeeBee

    Erm… am I missing something here?

    Somebody feel free to correct me – but there are some strict ‘Terms of Membership’ and etched-in-stone ‘Qualifying Conditions’…

    …and I’m pretty certain that Mr Wright doesn’t meet either of them.

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