This is a reminder for business property practitioners who are not in possession of trust account exemption letters and have a financial year end of 29 February 2024. Please ensure that your auditors submit your trust account audit reports to the Property Practitioners Regulatory Authority (PPRA) on or before 31 August 2024. This requirement is in accordance with section 54(5)(b) and 54(6) of the Property Practitioners Act (PPA). No requests for extensions will be considered or granted by the PPRA.

 

The submission must be done by your auditors on the MyPPRA Auditors Portal (Auditors Portal), accessible via the PPRA website. Please note that only auditors registered as assurance with the Independent Regulatory Board for Auditors (IRBA) are eligible to audit the trust accounts and submit trust account audit reports on the Auditors Portal. Further information for auditors can be found in the Guidelines on Audit, Accounting Records and Trust Accounts for Business Property Practitioners and detailed FAQ, available on the PPRA website.

 

In addition to the electronic submission on the Auditors Portal, auditors must upload signed pdf copies of the trust account audit reports on the audit firm's letterhead during the online submission. Auditors must only use the new illustrative audit report templates, published by the IRBA in March 2023 and available on the IRBA website. Only auditors of Payment Processing Agents are required to complete all three templates on the IRBA website. Other auditors must only complete the first template on the IRBA website.

 

 

Please take note of the following consequences of late submission or non-submission:

 

A late submission penalty of R20 per day will be imposed by PPRA, in terms of section 54(6) of the PPA and Regulation 38 of the Property Practitioners Regulations (PPR), for the first three months if the trust account audit report is not submitted by 31 August 2024.

 

If the trust account audit report remains outstanding by 30 November 2024, an additional fine of R25,000 will be imposed by the PPRA Inspections Department, through a Compliance Notice issued in terms of section 26(4) of the PPA and Regulation 38 of the PPRA.

 

Principals of business property practitioners who are not in possession of trust account exemption letters must bring this communication to the attention of their auditors. For further enquiries, please contact the PPRA Audit Compliance Department at audit@theppra.org.za .

 

Issued By:

AUDIT COMPLIANCE DEPARTMENT

PROPERTY PRACTITIONERS REGULATORY AUTHORITY