Real estate Covid backflip: Unvaccinated welcome at open homes and agents don’t need the jab

A growing number of businesses are making it mandatory for employees to get the Covid jab, but there’s been a ‘backflip’ when it comes to real estate agents and their open homes.

ANALYSIS

A growing number of businesses are making it mandatory for employees to get the Covid jab, but there’s been a “backflip” when it comes to real estate agents and their open homes.

The NSW government website still indicates that real estate businesses “take reasonable steps” to ensure all staff and customers are vaccinated.

And the Real Estate Institute of NSW initially advised its members that agents would need to be double-vaccinated and they’d need to check the status of visitors to open homes and auctions.

But then, the next day, after consulting with the Government, it said that actually wasn’t the case.

Agents don’t need the double jab.

A growing number of businesses are making it mandatory for employees to get the Covid jab, but there’s been a “backflip” when it comes to real estate agents and their open homes. Picture: Newscorp Sunday Telegraph / Gaye Gerard

They don’t even have to volunteer their vaccination status when chasing a listing (You’d have to ask).

And they don’t need to check people coming through the door at auctions or open homes have had it either.

So, unlike when you go to a restaurant, pub or the gym, where unvaccinated people are currently forbidden, they’re welcome to traipse through your house and mingle.

The only place they have to check vaccination status is entry to “in-rooms” auctions — inside.

No worries at all at on-site auctions — despite many of these being held inside.

Though an electronic check-in process is required; and masks inside.

It was all terribly confusing for the real estate agents.

One franchise’s head office sent through an email headed: “Covid Plan Backflip.”

“I had to prepare three different Covid safety plans in two days because they kept changing their mind,” one office manager said.

And why the apparent loosening of the rules — particularly regarding agents getting the jab — just as places like Woolworths, Coles, Qantas, Virgin and a range of others are insisting their employees are double-vaccinated.

Real Estate Institute of NSW CEO Tim McKibbin didn’t like the word “backflip”, saying the institute’s initial advice sent to agents was based on their reading of the Public Health Order and the Government’s Covid Safety Plan.

Real Estate Institute of NSW (REINSW) CEO Tim McKibbin.

“We went out on Friday afternoon and told agents they could only admit people that have been vaccinated into a property,” he said.

“And that agents needed to be double-vaccinated.

“The Government told us late on Friday afternoon, that’s not what they meant.

“And we said ‘well you’ll have to change your Covid Safety Plan if that’s your position’.”

“It took them all weekend for them ultimately to do that.

“It’s another example where there’s a great deal of confusion in the market.”

McKibbin said mandatory vaccination for employees was still a “grey area”.

“The question is, is it reasonable for the employer to insist on it?” he said.

“If the employer insists on it and the employee won’t comply, the employer can terminate them.

“It’s a mine field people have to manoeuvre.”

It seems increasingly less grey, with more employers demanding it.

And 73 per cent of respondents to a News Corp survey says businesses and corporations should be able to make the COVID 19 vaccination mandatory for employees.

McKibbon said it would be unclear where the liability would fall if it could be proven that someone contracted Covid at an open home or an auction, with private homes effectively becoming a real estate agent’s workplace.

“That could open a Pandora’s box … I’m not aware of anyone being held accountable or liable for passing on Covid to someone else,” he said.

“They couldn’t make the rules around Covid any more more complicated if they tried.”