Now, you have decided to form your new firm of practice - being any one of the below three types:
- sole proprietorship E(3) XXXX
- partnership E(2) XXXX
- body corporate (Sdn Bhd) E(1) XXXX
Below is the process of formation of a sole proprietorship firm of real estate agency practice.
Name search
You need to do a name search for the firm name using Form S. A sample is provided below:
There is no name search system in the bis.lppeh.gov.my where you could type the name and then, the system will automatically approve a name for you. This is done by normal email attachment to the officer incharge in Board. I attach below an email sample for this process:
The processing fee for name search is RM50.00 and you may pay online using the Board Maybank Account - which is the same account for exam registration and renewal fee.
Remember to attach your payment slip for name search when you write email to the Board. The officer has to ensure that you have paid the fee as it is manual rather than within the bis system.
If there is no issue with name selected, the reply would likely look like below:
Next, is to submit for New Firm Registration.
Everything is now within bis system online. There is no need to send the hard copy of relevant documents to Board by post or courier.
Do NOT use your personal sign-in to bis system (as a PEA or REA). This is a NEW ENTITY in the bis system yet to be created. Indeed, you are first time registering a New Firm, right?
The login screen of the bis system looks like this:
Click <Register> in the orange box above, and you will be taken to the screen shown below:
Which you proceed to the screen below:
At this stage, you will face with a few problems (at least 1 problem), which is SSM No. - you have NOT received your SSM No. as yet. Hence, you cannot proceed with the New Firm registration. You have to leave it here, and go back to form your firm before you could continue. Below are 2 methods to continue the bis system.
First method. You might have a way around it if you have already formed your sole proprietorship firm earlier. It could be a sole proprietorship firm doing other businesses, or
Second method. You form an entirely new sole proprietorship firm from scratch.
At this stage, if you have an old firm (doing other business) which you may want to use. However later on, you need change its name to the New Name of your estate agency. In this case, you have to also change the banking account of this sole proprietorship firm because its name has changed. Of course, replace old official stamp with the new one.
On the other hand, if you have recently formed a new sole proprietorship firm, this is straight forward.
*For partnership and Sdn Bhd, similar steps are to be used to get the Firm Registration Number. SSM will issue you a Company Number which you can use for this same purpose. (Kuching - we use the Business Registration number at LHDN instead of going to SSM to register a new sole proprietorship firm, for body corporate, everything is now online.)
With this SSM No., you can proceed to fill in all the windows of the bis system.
An example is as below
- SSM No. 117255
- Firm Name: SINJUN PROPERTIES
- Firm Email: [email protected]
- Administrator Name: Thomas Sim
As you have provided all the fields above, the bis system will allow you to register a new account for New Firm.
Immediate after this, you will receive an email at the email address you have provided to activate your New Firm Account in bis system. Just activate your new account for firm registration in bis system.
Next, fill in your 'Firm Administrator Profile', and your new firm information. A screenshot is taken below.
Proceed to fill in a page of 'Firm Registration Form' (boxed out in orange):
You can see below this page, there are links to the various parts:
Firm Details, Address & Contacts, Shareholder/Director/Principal, Supporting Documents, Declaration, Logs and Payment History.
For new registration, you need to fill up all the parts, and in particular the Attachments within 'Supporting Documents' of Form N, Resignation Letter (2 documents - both Resignation Letter and Acceptance of Resignation Letter to be exact) and Sample Letter Head of your firm. This you can see as below shown:
*** Added 28 Oct, 2023***
My application got REJECTED! See below screenshot.
Reason for being rejected is the supporting document "Resignation Letter" which is supposed to be "Acceptance of Resignation Letter".
Now, the interpretation of what this is actually has two (2) quite similar applications:
- Acceptance of Resignation Letter by the previous firm.
- Acknowledgement of the Resignation Letter by the previous firm.
- Acceptance of Resignation Letter
This is a letter most people do NOT know is necessary when they resigned from their firm.
The normal procedure for an employee to leave the firm is a resignation letter directed to the firm HR Department or the Manager.
The firm usually do NOT need to give any letter in reply unless there is a courtesy letter thanking the employed person for his service.
Now, in this case of no letter in reply to the resignation from the firm, the REA will encounter a problem when he proceed to register a new firm or joining another firm.
Why?
It is because the Board will not allow new registration or joining a new firm, until and unless the previous firm has issued a letter signifying that the departure is in good faith. This letter the Board calls it "Acceptance of Resignation Letter".
The concept is when a person leaves a practice while his engagement with the firm is not removed, e.g. the firm has not removed his name from the bis system, the new registration cannot be performed. A REA cannot be engaged with more than one firm at the same time.
Thus, in order to avoid complaint or discontent from the previous firm, Board will demand a "Acceptance of Resignation" before a new registration is performed.
Therefore, make sure you have secured a document called "Acceptance of Resignation Letter" from your previous firm as you leave the firm. In other words, the firm which you have left needs to issue you a letter saying they have accepted you to leave the firm.
A sample of how this letter looks like is given below.
2. Acknowledgement of the Resignation Letter
This is just a cop & sign on the letter of resignation with the date, stating that it is acknowledged to have received your resignation. It does NOT mean the firm has "accepted" your resignation. Nevertheless, I have heard that this "acknowledgement" is as good as "acceptance" of the resignation. Indeed, the person who had resigned with acknowledgement (no Acceptance of Resignation Letter) did successfully register as a REA in another firm. However, he did NOT form a new firm which in my case, I was rejected unless I support my application with an "Acceptance of Resignation Letter".
*To be strict, Board can insist that the resignation letter has to be officially replied with an "Acceptance of Resignation Letter" signed by the principal of the firm. If there is any dispute later on, the acknowledgement might not be able to prove that the firm has completely released the person.
Both the Resignation Letter and the Acceptance of Resignation Letter need to be jointly attached under "Resignation Letter" as the document for verification. Hence, you need to create a PDF file with these 2 (two) letters merged together, to be uploaded to the bis system.
*** End of Addition***
All that is completed, you may submit after 'Declaration'. There is a RED button below Declaration page for you to click <Submit>. At this stage, you have not paid for the processing fee of RM75.00.
Automatically, bis system will issue you an email notification on New Firm Registration - Submission - as below.
Now, go to the bis system to see under section <Payment> to make payment. This is automatic generated by bis system.
Proceed to make online payment which is as below:
And, later a payment receipt will be generated within <Payment> section of bis system.
You can print out the receipt for keeping. Having done all the above, you can go back to the bis system and see an update on your submission Status to 'verification'. See below:
As can be seen above, the submitted documents (attachments) is being verified and presented to a meeting by the Board. Wait for the approval to form this new firm and proceed next to pay for the registration fee for new firm -
- Sole Proprietorship is RM250
- Partnership is RM500
- Body Corporate is RM500
** Processing fee for application of New Registration is RM75 for all types of New Registrations regardless of types of firm formation. Nevertheless, the Registration Fee of new firm requires different rates of payment.
Next, we wait for approval by the Board Meeting.