IPI/BIV Competentietest common mistakes
IPI/BIV Competentietest · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Treating the deontological duties (loyalty, diligence, information, confidentiality) as general good manners and answering from personal ethics instead of citing the concrete obligation and its practical consequence in the file.
Candidates study the code of conduct as a list of slogans and never connect each duty to a specific act (e.g. informing the client in writing of a received offer, keeping the mandate's confidentiality after termination).
What to do instead
Build a two-column table for each duty: the obligation in one sentence, then one concrete file action that discharges it. Rehearse by reading a short fact pattern and naming the duty plus the act that fulfils or breaches it.
Assuming a client's instruction always overrides professional duties, so the candidate approves a mandate or transaction that conflicts with deontology because 'the client asked for it'.
Commercial instinct and the idea that the mandate is purely contractual; candidates forget that deontology is a public-order framework the professional cannot contract away.
What to do instead
Memorise the principle that duties apply regardless of client consent, and practise spotting the moment a client request (e.g. withholding information from a buyer, dual mandate without disclosure) must be refused or handled with written disclosure.
Missing discrimination in indirect or seemingly neutral criteria: refusing a tenant because of a benefit dependency, a language requirement in an advert, or a 'no children' preference, and judging only explicit insults as discrimination.
Candidates look for overt slurs and overlook neutral-seeming conditions that disproportionately exclude protected groups, and they confuse landlord freedom of choice with prohibited selection criteria.
What to do instead
Learn the protected grounds and the direct/indirect distinction, then screen adverts and selection scripts criterion by criterion, asking for each condition whether it is objectively justified by the tenancy and whether it excludes a protected group.
Answering that a discriminatory request from a client is simply followed because the intermediary is only executing instructions, instead of recognising the duty to refuse and, where relevant, to document the refusal.
Confusion about the boundary between serving the client and being personally responsible for one's own professional acts.
What to do instead
Study the rule that the professional's own conduct must be non-discriminatory even when instructed otherwise; practise formulating a short written refusal to the client and the alternative lawful criterion that can be proposed.
Confusing the third-party account with the agency's own operating account: paying agency costs from client funds, using client money to cover a shortfall, or failing to keep the account strictly separate and identifiable.
Practical cash-flow thinking and unfamiliarity with the strict segregation rule; candidates treat the account as a convenient buffer.
What to do instead
Memorise the core rules (segregation, no commingling, traceable client-by-client records, no use for the agency's own obligations) and rehearse the 'what may and may not pass through this account' checklist for each transaction type.
Handling the anti-money-laundering file mechanically: identifying the client but not the beneficial owner, not applying enhanced due diligence to a politically exposed person or high-risk case, and not knowing when a suspicious transaction must be reported before executing it.
Candidates memorise the acronyms but not the decision tree, so they cannot place a fact pattern at the right step (identification, verification, risk assessment, enhanced measures, reporting).
What to do instead
Draw the process as a flow: identify and verify client and beneficial owner, assess risk, apply enhanced measures where required, then decide on reporting and on whether to proceed. Practise by classifying short scenarios into the correct step and stating the required action.
Omitting or misstating mandatory mentions in adverts, mandates and public communications: forgetting the professional identification, the mandate's essential terms, the price and surface details, or the required mention of the intermediary's capacity.
Candidates rely on memory of a template rather than a fixed checklist, and they do not distinguish which mentions belong in the mandate, in the advert, and in the pre-contractual information.
What to do instead
Create a one-page checklist per document type (mandate, advert, website, pre-contractual information) listing every required mention, then test yourself by drafting a short advert and a short mandate and ticking each item.
Applying residential tenancy rules to the wrong situation: mixing up the rules on rent setting and indexation, the notice periods and grounds for termination, and the rules on the rental deposit, and applying them identically to residential and commercial leases.
The residential tenancy framework has been amended repeatedly and candidates carry over outdated or commercial-lease logic into residential cases.
What to do instead
Build a comparison grid: residential versus commercial lease, with rows for duration, rent and indexation, deposit, termination by landlord and by tenant, and notice formalities. Answer every fact pattern by first naming the lease type and the applicable rule.
Treating the BIV contribution, the mandatory professional insurance, the KBO registration and the Nacebel code as administrative afterthoughts, and not knowing which activity requires which code or what the insurance must cover.
Candidates study these as isolated facts to memorise rather than as a linked compliance chain, so they cannot answer scenario questions about an unregistered or underinsured activity.
What to do instead
Map the chain: correct Nacebel code for the activity, active KBO registration, BIV membership and contribution, and insurance cover matching the activities actually performed (including syndic or rental mediation). Test yourself by checking a described practice against each link.
Confusing the disciplinary track with the criminal track for unlawful practice: assuming that a complaint to the disciplinary body also handles unauthorised exercise of the profession, or that a civil dispute is a disciplinary matter.
Candidates blur the roles of the disciplinary authority, the courts and the professional institute, and do not know who can complain and what sanction can follow.
What to do instead
Make a three-column chart: disciplinary complaint (who, about what, possible sanctions), criminal prosecution for unlawful practice (who prosecutes, what is punished), and civil liability. Classify short scenarios into the correct track and name the first procedural step.