Residential Property Manager Industry Council Update

A message from your Chair, Don Newell

On December 1, 2020, Don Newell, FCPA, ICD.D, was appointed to the Residential Property Manager Industry Council by the Minister of Service Alberta, and was selected as Chair by the other Industry Council members. Mr. Newell brings over 40 years of public accounting and business experience. He recently retired from Deloitte Calgary as a senior partner, with previous experience in Toronto and Saskatchewan, serving a variety of real estate, manufacturing, wholesale, technology and financial organizations.

It’s been a busy and productive five months on the Residential Property Manager Industry Council. Here’s a brief update on what we’ve been up to recently.

Education divestment

The Industry Council is focused on having pre-licensing education in place for condominium managers by December 1, 2021. To accomplish this, we first need to develop the required Competency Profiles with Learning Objectives. In March, we sent a survey to condominium management stakeholders regarding the proposed competencies for condominium managers. We are now working on the Learning Objectives with the assistance of the Condominium Manager Implementation Advisory Committee. We will soon be consulting with industry stakeholders on these proposed learning objectives. Please keep an eye out for the notification to provide your feedback. 

We have been working with the other Industry Councils and the Board on the development of a common education framework. We will soon be consulting with stakeholders on this as well. 

Once the consultation processes are complete and the Competencies and Learning Outcomes and Education Frameworks are approved by our Industry Councils and Board and, where appropriate, by the Minister of Service Alberta, we intend to communicate with potential course providers.

The condominium sector will be the first area of RECA to go through the third-party provider process. All course providers meeting the course and course provider requirements will be recognized as course providers. We look forward to providing further updates.

In the meantime, I encourage you to provide feedback on the proposed upcoming consultations. Your feedback is crucial to ensuring that we get education and pre-licensing right from the beginning.    

Condominium management

We anticipate that licensing of all classes of condominium management will be in place on December 1, 2021. Condo managers who are currently working in the field and meet certain experience requirements will be given the opportunity to challenge the appropriate exam. The Industry Council is currently working on the eligibility criteria for those who wish to challenge the exams. We will inform all stakeholders once we have made our decisions on the criteria.

Enforcement under new Act

On March 8, the Industry Council issued its first suspension of a licensee. This is the first time an Industry Council carried out a suspension under RECA’s new governance model in accordance with the new Act. This is a responsibility the Industry Council takes seriously, as RECA’s principal mandate is consumer protection. The Residential Property Manager Industry Council will always strive to do what is best for the Alberta consumer, and enforce the standards of practice that all licensees must follow.

Upcoming stakeholder engagement

If you haven’t already, please register for our upcoming online engagement session on Wednesday, May 19, 2021, at 9 a.m. You can always connect with the Industry Council at ResPmIC@reca.ab.ca or send us a question and we’ll try to answer it during the Q&A period of the online session. After the online engagement session is over, it will be posted to RECA’s website so you can view it afterwards if you cannot make the session live.

Please also take a moment to provide your input on RECA’s Strategic Planning forms. The Industry Council will review all stakeholder input from these questionnaires.

We’ll also be hosting broker forums for brokers and broker delegates soon—if you’re interested in attending, please email us.