SVIT: the estate trustee and his past, present and future role

A professional with multidisciplinary know-how, who represents the owner of the property towards third parties, ensuring that the real estate assets are enhanced, managed and treated in accordance with the laws and in compliance with the contractual agreements between the parties.

Why is it necessary and what are the legal bases

Real estate in the Canton of Ticino plays an important role on both an economic and social level: mistakes in this area can have serious consequences, just as happens with monetary assets. For this reason, in Ticino anyone who carries out brokerage or property management activities on behalf of third parties is compulsorily subject to the law on the exercise of fiduciary professions and must be in possession of the relevant cantonal authorization (a sort of "license") which is granted only to those who have the right requirements after careful analysis by a commission of experts.

Anyone who does not have the aforementioned authorization cannot sign mandates and carry out real estate sales or management activities on behalf of third parties. Authorizations are issued to natural persons and are of a personal nature. The authorized persons are registered in a public register which the end customer can also freely consult (www4.ti.ch/di/dg/fiduciari/albo-online/albo), in order to verify whether the person (and the company) whoever entrusts a mandate to manage or sell his property is in compliance with the law.

The Supervisory Authority is responsible for prudential supervision of the exercise of the fiduciary profession, i.e. the issuing of authorizations and the control of activities, as well as the prosecution of the abusive exercise of the fiduciary profession. In fact, there are still cases of people or companies carrying out this work illegally: anyone can report these cases to the SVIT or directly to the supervisory authority.

The real estate trustee: past, present and future

The role of the real estate trustee is constantly evolving, which follows in step with the important changes that occur both at a societal level (legislative, economic, social and political aspects) and at the level of the real estate "product", which is also constantly evolving . The properties of today are in fact profoundly different from the properties of 50 years ago, just look at, for example, the growing importance of the energy aspect (Minergie, RUen, etc.), health (asbestos abatement, radon testing, debris disposal, etc. .) or even simply the new ways of using spaces (home-office, smart-working, etc.).

Today's real estate trustee must therefore, compared to the past, know more, simply because there is a growing intrinsic complexity of society (in laws, in bureaucracy, in construction techniques) which requires increasingly in-depth multidisciplinary knowledge. It is therefore essential for this professional figure to always stay up to date with continuous professional training, in order to always be able to best advise the client.

The challenges for the future are many: the Covid experience has accelerated a process already underway; Technology is changing the way we conceive and use spaces (remote working, augmented reality, VR, home automation) and how we work.

In fact, digitalisation leads to growing disintermediation, where the customer can have all the information comfortably sitting at the computer, without having to physically visit the spaces or meet a consultant. This phenomenon is changing the way of marketing properties and managing relationships with customers, just look at the evolution of the "prop-tech" market (technology + real estate). The real estate trustee of the future, in order not to be "left out", will therefore have to be an even more multifaceted figure, and add good technological and digital knowledge to his wealth of know-how.

SVIT Ticino in brief

SVIT Ticino – Swiss association of the real estate economy, Ticino section – was founded in 1941 and has more than 170 members. All SVIT Ticino members are real estate trustees authorized by the Canton and registered in the register. Svit Ticino promotes the interests of real estate and organizes preparation courses for federal exams to obtain real estate management and marketing certificates and continuous training for members.

For more information about SVIT and the form pathsatives you can visit the dedicated site.