From Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS)

18 Jun 2015

Dear RICS Caribbean Members & Colleagues,

I am pleased to be able to share with you our region’s achievements so far this year and some of what is still in store.

We began 2015 on a high note with a record 98 per cent Continuing Professional Development (CPD) compliance rate for the Caribbean, one of the highest in our hemisphere and surpassing the RICS global average of 96 per cent compliance.

On March 5, The Cayman Islands Chapter held yet another successful RICS Property & Construction Conference, which attracted over 200 delegates and featured a keynote address by RICS President Dr. Louise Brooke-Smith on her first visit to the Caribbean.

The Cayman Islands, as the first Caribbean territory to adopt the RICS Valuer Registration programme, was also fittingly the place from which the announcement of the launch of full implementation of Valuer Registration for the rest of the Caribbean was also made by Dr. Brooke-Smith.

Since then, over 80 RICS valuers throughout the region have registered with the program, which seeks to minimize risks and assure quality in the property market. If you are performing valuations in the region, and have not signed-up, please email RICS staff at [email protected] to be walked through the process.

In Barbados on May 19, a panel discussion was held on the “Pros and Cons of the Mass Appraisal System”. This successful CPD event attracted 54 property professionals from across the Barbados public and private sectors and also garnered interest from members in the wider Caribbean, including the Eastern Caribbean where the Central Bank is in the process of instituting an Eastern Caribbean Appraisal Institute. RICS is continuing to monitor this development and will be arranging within the next quarter a formal means through which our members can feedback on this initiative.

Going forward, the RICS Jamaica Chapter will be the host of the 4th Annual RICS/IPTI Caribbean Valuation & Construction Conference, scheduled for November 18 & 19, 2015, in Montego Bay, Jamaica. I would encourage you to continue to check the event page for details as they unfold and register when the portal becomes available as this promises to be another must-attend conference for our region.

We look forward to your continued engagement with all of our chapter events across the region over the latter half of the year.

Sincerely,

Sanjay Amin FRICS

Caribbean Board Chair

For more on this story go to: http://www.rics.org/us/news/news-insight/news/a-message-from-the-caribbean-board-chair-sanjay-amin/