A study in Maltese regulation - estate agency services : a suitable case for treatment?

Abstract

The object of this brief paper is to address the omission of the law to provide suitable regulation of what are popularly termed "estate agents". It attempts to highlight some relevant issues and to raise questions, rather than reach conclusions or provide answers. Before focusing on the particular activity under review, we need to agree on the meaning of "regulation" in this context and to understand its underlying rationale. At the outset, it would be correct to remark that we are all creatures and subjects of law. The law is not a phenomenon which is extraneous to us. We have personal identity cards and passports, and we vote at elections and we pay taxes. We have various rights and obligations arising from a variety of laws. These phenomena are and have to be established by legislation. Unless we fall within the cracks in the style of "Il fu Mattia Pascal'"', the State is normally aware of our existence and demands certain obligations from us. In return, it concedes to us various rights and benefits. In often peculiar fashions, we may be subjected to regulation even after we die. Death certificates have to be produced, monies paid to government in the form of Stamp duties and what assets we leave behind become re-designated as an "inheritance" for the benefit of others. This introduction is only intended to demonstrate that regulation is the norm (sic) rather than the · exception. Regulation is extensive and almost all embracing. We just cannot escape it. It may not always have been so, but certainly today's complex society structures and the extensive role played by government and other public authorities require the support of an extensive legal framework. We are here interested in one particular type of regulation. This paper is not concerned with the general civil, criminal or general commercial laws. The type of regulation that concerns us here is quite different, and relates to laws that seek to establish a suitable framework governing a number of specific sectors of economic or professional activity identified as warranting such intervention.