Ask a qualified valuer to define a good property manager, and the answer might well be "a person who can ensure a property can operate at optimum levels through efficient portfolio and asset management".

Ask the same question to a person with experience in the same discipline, but who doesn't have a valuation degree under his belt, and the following ditty might be recited:

“He must be a democrat, an autocrat, an acrobat and a doormat,

He must be a sportsman - a footballer, a golfer, a bowler,

He must be a leader, a MacGyver of sorts, an entrepreneur and a singer of fine songs,

At all times, he must look immaculate when interviewing tenants, bankers, swankers and company representatives even though he may have just inspected sewage tanks, garbage disposal or attended to brawls,

He must be outside, inside, glorified, sanctified, crucified, stupefied,

And if he is not strong, there’s always suicide!”

The difference in their approach goes to the heart of the fact that there is more than one kind of property manager in the country. Under the framework of the Government’s Valuers, Appraisers and Estate Agents Act, a valuer is empowered with undertaking the task through his academic immersion in a range of property-related subjects. Thus, the likely reason for his text-book perfect, scientific description of the property management function.

The second kind of manager is one who’s grown in the profession from rank and file; who might not have the academic qualifications to be a valuer but is vested with the commitment to hone his skills in what some might say is a thankless job. Ergo, the reason for his passionate, poetic prose.

Together, both types of managers have survived in the property industry for decades. Maybe not in perfect harmony, but certainly towards the goal of maintaining the country’s built environment to the best of their abilities.

Unfortunately, their best so far hasn’t been good enough. In September last year, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, then the Deputy Prime Minister, said the country is facing a serious problem of property and asset maintenance and wanted to see a change.

“If we are unable and unwilling to keep things in good shape, then we cannot even begin to talk about becoming a developed nation,” he was quoted as saying.

Property managers in the country took his remarks to heart. They had to, given the fact that they are the ones charged with maintaining many of our country’s built assets.

And one of the moves being initiated by two groups of valuers, the Property Consultancy and Valuation Surveying (PCVS) section of the Institution of Surveyors Malaysia (ISM) and the Association of Valuers and Property Consultants in Private Practice (PEPS), is to ensure that the Ministry of Finance’s Board of Valuers, Appraisers and Estate Agents (BVAEA) amends current legislation so that non-valuers involved in management be regulated by being included in a register.

After this is done, both ISM and PEPS want the BVAEA to introduce a set of standards for the profession to be guided by. These include ensuring the proper set up and operation of sinking funds, enhancing the fiduciary duties and responsibilities of property managers, keeping proper annual accounts and making them available for scrutiny by interested parties, creating day-to-day operational guidelines, spelling out the manner in which contracts are awarded and car-park management.

“Without regulation there cannot exist enforceable standards,” both groups said in a joint memorandum first made available exclusively to PropertyTimes.

The proposal has not gone down well with non-valuer property managers, and even building owners and business groups who feel that deregulation and the move towards free market enterprise should be the order of the day. This led to an alliance between the Malaysian Association for Shopping Complex and Highrise Management (PPK), the Real Estate and Housing Developers’ Association (Rehda) and the Associated Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry Malaysia (ACCCIM).

Also named by the ISM-PEPS coalition as being an alliance member is Kumar Tharmalingam, president of the Malaysian chapter of the International Real Estate Federation (Fiabci), although it said that he “has no mandate to represent Fiabci on this matter and is thus presumed to be representing himself”.

The three organisations and Tharmalingam see the move for regulation as being suggested by a grouping that is so out of touch with the ever-changing demands of the profession it would only stunt development of the profession and deny owners of choice.

“Property management is an organic industry that evolves with social demands and globalisation,” said PPK president, Richard Chan. “To positively contribute to the advancement of property management, you’ve got to be immersed in it daily.

“Take shopping centres, for example. The way they were run back in 1981, when the Board’s Act came into being, and today is totally different.”

The “don’t teach your grandmother how to suck eggs” sentiment of the alliance could find some bearing in a 1999 BVAEA internal newsletter which revealed that only seven per cent of the country’s 503 registered valuers are involved in property management work, and of 96 valuation firms in the country, only 36 per cent provide the service.

In comparison, PPK, for instance, lays claim to the fact its membership roster boasts individuals and companies representing 70 per cent of all the shopping centres in the country, and has a 16-member council with a combined experience of 170 years in shopping centre management, making it arguably the most erudite body of its kind in the country.

There are other reasons why the PPK-Rehda-ACCCIM alliance does not want valuers in general and the BVAEA in particular to regulate them. One has to do with the fear it might dissuade experienced and talented managers from sharing their extensive experience. Another is because the alliance feels the “regulators” haven’t helped to improve the profession through education in the past, so why start now?

And on the part of Rehda, which is involved in the feud because the country’s housing developers also happen to own a large stock of highrise buildings and shopping centres requiring the services of property managers, they feel any move towards regulation would rob them of the autonomy to decide on who to engage as well as drive up costs.

According to the Govern-ment’s 2002 Property Market Report, the country has 139.7 million square feet of office space, 65.3 million square feet of shopping centre premises and some 750,000 stratified residential units, many demanding good management so that, as the ISM-PEPS group said, “greater productivity and efficiency” can be attained.

In the current shape legislation is in, owners of buildings are exempted from registering their in-house management personnel with the Government simply because they are not deemed to be undertaking the service for a fee and “are thus not practising as a property management firm”.

At the same time, the BVAEA, acknowledging the need for better expertise which valuers might not be able to provide, gave temporary rights under section 22 of the Act to certain non-valuers and foreign parties to undertake property management. This practice, says the ISM-PEPS coalition, shows that the profession is not only limited to valuers and certain estate agents.

As if to show its intent on bringing more talent into the property management arena, the proposal that the coalition wants tabled is to allow non-valuers who have been involved in property management activities to merely seek inclusion in a property management register to be administered by the BVAEA within a period of one year after the amendments to current legislation have been passed.

“Those currently employed and undertaking in-house property manager functions for owners of highrise buildings will be given rights to practice … in areas they have been employed in, provided they possess some basic qualifications as determined by the Board, upon the enactment of the amendments to the Act,” suggests ISM-PEPS.

After the expiry of one year, it recommends that future prospective managers sit for exams conducted by the BVAEA in much the same way as it does for the estate agency profession.

“The Board has, since 1985, tamed and regulated the estate agency profession which was growing in an unrestrained manner with frequent public criticisms against errant and bogus estate agents,” said the ISM-PEPS joint memorandum.

“Today, with the Board’s steadfast and continuous regulatory measures, the estate agency profession, although still beset by some ‘unlicensed’ estate agency, is certainly on the way to become a highly respected profession in the region.”

While nice sounding on paper, the PPK-Rehda-ACCCIM alliance is of the opinion that property management and estate agency work are very different in nature, and that while regulation might work for the latter, it most certainly would only impede the former.

“Property managers take their instructions from building owners who control purse-strings and give the final nod,” said an alliance source. “There is no question of managers going unbridled and out of control as owners who have sunk millions of ringgit into their buildings would want to see capable people handling their investments.

“Maybe the pertinent question to ask is why do the majority of owners choose non-valuers to handle the task?

“If valuers want to subject non-valuers to their exams, they should also apply the same rules to themselves.”

The source added that should the BVAEA pursue registration of non-valuer property managers, the country could face a brain-drain of experienced talent:

“At present in the country, there are only about 12 property managers with a wealth of knowledge who have retired as employees and have subsequently opened their own firms, offering management services on a consultancy basis. If regulation was to be made compulsory, half of them might decide to offer their services overseas where the market is more lucrative.

“The skills they have accumulated would make them valuable commodities there.

“Although their number might be small, in the next three to five years, the number of managers retiring and opting to go into private practice is envisaged to triple. Should they be required to sit for exams, many might choose to stop working altogether, meaning the country would lose out on a greater pool of expertise.”

Another reason for the alliance not supporting regulation by the BVAEA
is grounded on what it claims as being “the lack of effort made in the past to groom and enhance the profession”.

“They (the BVAEA and valuers) haven’t done much for us. They haven’t developed any (property management) courses for us, or tried to empower us with new management techniques. Now, all of a sudden, they want to govern us,” said the alliance source.

“And where were they last year when shopping centre and car-parking security became an issue during the Canny Ong kidnapping? They’ve been strangely silent even until today, not offering suggestions on how to improve this aspect of management.

“You have to wonder what kind of leadership example that sets.”

The ISM-PEPS coalition, however, denies the profession has been starved of education.

“The country has since Independence sunk a considerable amount of money in educating persons who have enrolled in universities, both domestic and foreign, in the discipline of property management,” it said in its joint memo.

“Students to these courses have focused their career prospects … on it being regulated rather than being a ‘free for all’.

“Currently, (several) domestic universities do provide university level degrees in property management and it becomes a waste if (after) having invested millions, the profession is now deregulated. At the very least these institutions of higher learning in the country should also have a say in this debate,” it said.

For the full text of the ISM-PEPS joint memo, log on to www.ism.org.my.

Reactions from proponents of deregulation in a future issue.