The Professional Designation Examination

The Professional Designation Examinations at both Level 4 and 5 are examinations issued by the Estate Agency Affairs Board to Agents who have obtained their NQF 4 or 5 Qualification, or who have been exempt therefrom. The examination was redesigned upon implementation of Regulation 633 (an amendment to the Estate Agency Affairs Act, actioned in 2008) to be an integrated test of knowledge for Estate Agents, to prove that they are fit to practice as a Full Status or a Principal Agent, respectively.

From completion of the NQF Qualification, or of exemption from the Qualification, the candidate has one year in which to write and pass his PDE Examination.

The EAAB schedules four examination dates a year, generally around February, May, August, and November. Agents must pay a prescribed fee (currently R550.00 for the PDE 4, and R750.00 for the PDE 5) to the EAAB in order to register, and must also purchase the EAAB Study Guides upon registration for the exam. In order to register for the examination, the Agent must first be declared competent on their Intern Logbook, and must present their SETA Certificate at NQF Level 4, or their equivalency exemption letter (if they are writing the PDE 4), or their SETA Certificate at NQF Level 5 (or their equivalency exemption letter, as the case may be), as well as their company documents, along with proof of a registered Trust Account (if they are writing the PDE 5).

An Agent will pass the Professional Designation Examination if they obtain a minimum of 65% in each of the three exam sections. The examination consists of Section A, short general knowledge questions; Section B, a case study along with the implementation of either a business, marketing and/or operational plan; and Section C, a case study, likely surrounding the Code of Conduct, commission, or Trust Accounts.

The examination is open book, so Agents do not necessarily fail due to a lack of knowledge or access to information. The most common reasons for an Estate Agent failing the PDE Examination is either that they run out of time and only answer one or two Sections, or because they do not know where to find the answers in their Study Guides. Enter BrainTrust’s PDE Preparation Workshops at both Level 4 and 5. These workshops are designed to assist in the studying process, breaking down which chapters are important and which chapters should be omitted, essentially turning these mammoth Study Guides into small parcels of palatable information; but they are also designed to assist you in the examination itself. By providing you with a full alphabetical index to the EAAB Study Guides, you will easily be able to locate all evidence you require simply by looking on your index and finding the correlating page and chapter number. We conduct a walkthrough of a few different past papers, so that you can gauge which questions are repeated year on year, and get a general idea of the wording and types of questions that are asked. We also provide a few supporting documents, such as the layouts for a business and marketing plan, which can be used as a template in the actual examination. These workshops are both available face-to-face, and online. With a 97% pass rate for the PDE 4 and a 98% pass rate for the PDE 5 examination, we are confident in saying that our Preparation Workshops will help you succeed in passing the PDE Examination! You can register for these workshops by using the buttons below.