A lethal blow to the RE / MAX Real Estate business in Argentina: the IGJ prohibits it from operating and orders the dissolution of the company

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The measure was demanded by the Real Estate College of the City of Buenos Aires. According to the agency, real estate companies cannot work with franchises

The General Inspectorate of Justice (IGJ) prohibited the business of RE / MAX for real estate activity, as a result of a request from the Unique Association of Real Estate Brokers of the City of Buenos Aires (Cuciba). Thus, he ordered the immediate dissolution and closing of the business.

As it emerged, the agency is considered an illegal model of business, therefore the activity cannot be franchisable.

iProfessional could learn from IGJ sources that the resolution was signed today and it was notified to RE / MAX International and to that College.

According to said resolution, signed by Ricardo Nissen, the Remax business is ” illicit “that the real estate companies operate under franchise.

Thus, as the IGJ resolved, the business must stop operating in the country and, therefore, you will have to start the judicial process of dissolution and subsequent liquidation.

According to the resolution, the body that Nissen leads questions the nature of this business, which has the main franchise and that, from there, agents and brokers are sub-franchised. This is illegal.

According to the document that would become official tomorrow, the local RE / MAX network has about 150 offices located in 40 cities throughout Argentina.

For the IGJ, the business “indirectly exercises real estate brokerage by avoiding local legislation, which imperatively establishes requirements for this activity and benefits through RE / MAX Argentina SRL, participating in the commissions of real estate operations brokered by the number of sub-franchisees, beyond the fact that these participations could appear fictitiously rated how royalties or similar concept, contributory to the use of the brand ‘RE / MAX’ “.

“The exteriorization of the ‘Remax’ brand by these sub-franchisees”, states the resolution, “generates in their favor the false appearance belonging to an economic group, which benefits them based on a advertising misleading , which, in turn, benefits the franchisor, allowing it to participate indirectly in an operation that it could not carry out directly by itself “.

Unfair competition

The attempts of the real estate segment for putting limits on the franchise model that it leads RE / MAX they come from long ago. And, in addition to claims in the City of Buenos Aires, the franchise also has a claim in the province of Buenos Aires.

In a closed block, the Buenos Aires auctioneers had been carrying out an intense judicial crusade with the idea of dismantling a business proposal that invoices millions through an alleged job insecurity. The professionals of the traditional real estate activity do not hesitate to brand as “unfair competition” what the international firm has been carrying out so the trials do not stop multiplying .

“In actuality, there are legal actions against the business of these franchises in practically all the provinces of the country. Lawsuits against professionals are one step away from reaching the courts. There are processes with appeals, it is a context of total judicialization against the movements of the company. The decision is to prevent it from continuing with predatory practices and outside of any ethics, “they had recently indicated from the entity’s environment.

As already exposed iprofessional on other occasions, the schools in the sector point against RE / MAX for operating under a system that, they denounce, would be promoting real estate without its own employees, uses those enrolled as mere “lends names” and encourages the multiplication of “brokers” through courses taught by the same company.

In these activities, which last for a few weeks, unlike the university training required among auctioneers, sources from the field of auctioneers assured this medium that those interested pay large tuition fees and even must make additional payments in concepts such as clothing or use of posters with the franchisor’s colors and logo .

” They are like a Rappi but from real estate. They give a 15-day training to the salespeople, who are far from being in a dependency relationship: they are all monotax. They even have to pay for the desk they then use. They get someone to put their license plate and Thus they enable points of sale or rental with a score of ‘brokers’ or more. There are no ethics and our profession is destroyed, “a representative of the Chamber of Martilleros de Mar del Plata told this medium.

“We are against giving names to these companies and, of course, strongly against the lack of blank staff. No job source creation . You have to operate with professionals and that is not fulfilled. The auctioneer, the public broker, is a university professional. In front of us we have people with 15-day courses dictated by the same business “, he detailed.

Thus, the resolution of the IGJ, which will be known this Wednesday, contains fundamentals that have long been pointed out by professionals in the sector.

Carlos Prono, secretary of the College of Auctioneers and Public Brokers of the province of Buenos Aires, had indicated iProfessional late last year that RE / MAX and its peers “practiced a illegal exercise of the profession “.

“The professional law obliges to operate under its own name, not even companies are exempted from that. The framework establishes for this figure that all its members must be enrolled. However, this does not happen with franchise companies. Enrollee names are ‘loaned’ to carry out the operations “, he assured.

Source: iprofessional

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