A judicial ruling threatened punitive sanctions last week if real estate agents continued charging rates above the legal limit, often doubling or tripling them. Resolution 2,340, which was initially passed by the Buenos Aires City legislature in 2007, mandates that real estate companies can only charge a maximum 4.15 commission rate on a 24-month tenant contract. The real estate association president warned, though, that this could have some negative financial consequences on the more than 5,500 realtors in the city. Alba García, a realtor in the Buenos Aires City neighbourhood of Almagro, told the Herald that real estate companies were resorting to various methods to recover their losses. “We are increasing our advertising budgets, or shifting part of the commission rate charges to the owners, but it depends on each real estate firm,” she said.

Source: Bueno Aires Herald September 05, 2016 03:00 UTC