Law of agency: RES practice questions

An agent is a fiduciary of the principal and must not place personal interests in conflict with the agency duties without the principal's informed consent. Singapore Law Watch, paragraph 15.6.2, expressly states that an agent who receives a secret bribe must account for it to the principal. The contractor's personal reward is connected with the agent's selection duty, and there is no informed consent. An account directed at that payment therefore addresses the landlord's objective. Neither treating the payment as remuneration nor merely ending or compelling continued performance of the agency requires the agent to surrender the secret receipt.

Agency carries a fiduciary obligation of loyalty, but not every failure by an agent is a fiduciary breach. The Court of Appeal distinguishes disloyalty from mere incompetence: the duty of good faith and the duty of care differ in kind. Here the facts expressly establish a negligent but loyal, unwitting error, not a dishonest concealment or conscious disregard of the landlord's interests. The error therefore does not itself establish breach of fiduciary good faith. This does not excuse negligence: the Code separately requires due diligence, despatch and care. Nor does a clerical error automatically terminate the agency.

CEA explains that its prescribed estate agency agreement is a contractual agreement between the consumer and the estate agent, meaning the property agency through which the salesperson is registered. It clarifies the terms of the services and the agreed commission. CEA encourages signing at the beginning, before the salesperson starts work, including before arranging buyer viewings. The appropriate purchase-side version should be used. CEA is the regulator, not the buyer's contracting service provider, and this appointment is distinct from a later sale agreement with a seller.

Clause 3(b) requires renewal or extension in the same prescribed form, with the necessary changes to the commencement and expiry dates, and excludes other methods. Each renewal must also stay within the prescribed maximum term; the proposed two-month renewal does so. An internal note, an automatic-renewal addendum or passive continuation of advertisements is not the prescribed renewal method. This question concerns renewal of exclusivity, not whether some different authority might arise on other facts.

Form 5's exclusive commitment concerns appointing the estate agency, not restricting its work to one individual salesperson. Schedule 1 note (14) expressly anticipates more than one salesperson and requires their names and particulars to be recorded, using an attachment where necessary. Harbour remains the sole appointed agency. This internal team is different from making independent appointments of different agencies; neither conversion to non-exclusive terms nor concealing a salesperson's involvement follows from the team arrangement.