Estate Agency

tracey2007

Hi

I've recently been asked to take over the accounts for an estate agent who is a member of the National Association of Estate Agents. The problem I have is that the NAEA require an Accountants Report completed annually stating that their member is compliant with their Rules of Conduct over holding clients money. The member is fully compliant but their form states that it must be signed by a Certified or Chartered Accountant. I just wondered if anyone else had come across this problem and if there was any way around it?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Steve Collings

Hi,

I don't deal with Estate Agents but I do deal with Solicitors who are subject to the Solicitors Accounts Rules 1998 and who have to have an Accountants Report signed off for the Solicitors Regulation Authority (previously the Law Society). In much the same way as your Estate Agency Client, it is all concerned with the handling of client monies in accordance with Solicitors Accounts Rules and involves certain procedures to be carried out, which act in a similar way to an audit, but is not actually an audit in the traditional sense, to enable the Accountants to sign the report to say the client is complying with the regulations. Under those rules, the Accountants must be a CCAB qualified Registered Auditor and seemingl the same sort of regime will apply to your client reporting to the NAEA.

In such situations, the only way around this is to approach a firm of Chartered/Chartered Certified Accountants.

Kind regards
Steve

whiterose

Does the Estate Agent actually ever hold any client monies? I had a similar situation with an Estate Agent client but as the Agent never holds any client monies was able to persuade NAEA that they didn't need a Chartered Accountant's signature.

tracey2007

Thanks for your replies. Yes, my client does hold client's money so I think he will have to approach another accountant to get this report signed off. Hopefully, I will still be able to do his accounts etc.....