Overview of Activities

Overview of the activities of the Association of Real Estate Companies:

The Association of Real Estate Companies of Estonia was established on March 10, 1994. EKFL is a non-profit organisation, which is managed by the management board that is composed of 7 members, who are elected for two years. Peep Sooman (chairman of the management board), Mart Saa (deputy chairman of the member of the management board), Indrek Hääl,Tõnu Toompark, Ardi Roosimaa, Mika Sucksdorff, Tarmo Kase. Managing director is Tõnis Rüütel.

EKFL is the union of companies engaged in property brokerage, development, administration and consultations, attaching great importance to the honest, quick, correct and professional service. The membership in EKFL has become an additional value for the real estate companies, increasing their creditability. Companies with a sense of mission have usually deemed a membership in the professional associations natural.

Mission of the Association is:
Formation of a safe property market operating on the basis of good customs and steady rules.
Promotion of the value of the membership of the Association and raising awareness of the logo of the Association as a quality mark.
Maintenance of good reputation of the Association and its members, to distinguish those from the other participants in the property market.
Representation of the interests of the members of the Association in the state and local government institutions.
Participation in working out laws and drafts of other legal documents and in their adoption proceedings.
Contribution to the international business contacts of the members of the Association.

In order to ensure secure services of the members of the Association, complying with good customs, the Code of Good Customs of the Association (HTK) is adopted and a Court of Honor (AK), who is guided by HTK and universally recognised practice, established for the supervision of adherence of HTK. The Court of Honour shall discuss and adjudicate disputes where at least one of the participants is the member of the Association. Every customer of the member company of the Association, as well as every member of the Association, shall have a right to turn to AK with application or complaint. The Court of Honour has so far succeeded to avoid the disputes going to the court.

The Association has become one of the opinion leaders in the economic sector of property in the communication with the press. Since 2009 monthly round tables of market participants in the economic sector of property are organised. The purposes of the round table of the Association are to:

Improve the quality of the economic environment of property through joint thinking;
Provide ideas, in the in the medium term perspective, to ensure quality in the field of property development, as well as property brokerage;
Periodically introduce new developments in the property sector in Estonia and in the wider world;
Initiate and, if appropriate, work out property related regulations and rules. EKFL has organised for more than ten years a spring conference “Kuhu liigub Eesti kinnisvaraturg?” (“Where is the Estonian property market headed?”) and in autumn a seminar on topical issues in the area concerned.

Work done:

EKFL is a founder of the Estonian Chamber of Real Estate Brokers, who has worked out, in cooperation with the Estonian Qualifications Authority, the Professional Standards for Real Estate Brokers. The valid Professional Standards for Real Estate Brokers is approved on June 18, 2008 by the Professional Council of Construction, Geomatics and Real Estate.
The Association has also been active in the field of law making. Development of regulation for building out so called attic spaces could be cited as one of the examples. For instance, consents of all residents are no longer required, the majority is sufficient.
One of the most pressing issues, which the Association deals with, in cooperation with the Estonian Chamber of Real Estate Brokers, is the exclusion of fake brokers, as a result of which there are more qualified professionals in the market.
The IT working group attached to the Association, has worked out a new data exchange protocol, which summons all of the good features of the so far used data exchange protocols and eliminates the faults, as there has been quite a lot of criticism in respect of those, which are operating today. This protocol is used by many member companies of EKFL and the work for its improvement is on-going.