The final paragraph of Rule 8.1 in the ARMLS Rules and Regulations states: “ARMLS, on the advice of its legal counsel, may refuse to publish information that may generate legal liability”. The listing agent may wish to explain that the MLS rules provide for such discretion. If necessary the listing agent may provide relevant portions of these Rules and Regulations such as Section 8.1. We have determined that the removal of certain words, phrases and numbers are enforceable under this rule and will be forbidden and removed by ARMLS.ARMLS will be checking for certain verbiage in the Public Remarks, Directions and in some cases the Realtor Remarks. We will be removing the offending material and sending notice of the removal via the e-mail function of our automatic listing checking software iCheck. Please read the policy in its entirety and direct any questions you may have to the Compliance Department. The new policy can be found in flexmls and in the Subscribers’ area of ARMLS.com (or click here: Inappropriate Language Policy). Violators of the policy will be sent e-mails and letters generated by iCheck (our automated listing review software). These messages will look at little different than other violation e-mails and letters from the Compliance Department that you may have heard about or received in the past. The e-mails will have no attachments as the information you need to carefully review is directly in the body of the e-mail. Most of these notices will contain due dates by which you need to take care of the violation in order to avoid being fined.
Tags: Rules //
[…] Arizona Regional MLS has set up a new blog called NewARMLS.com. Though one of the key topics on the blog is the conversion to the flexmls Web system, Bob Bemis, ARMLS’s CEO, appears to be looking to use this platform for a long time to come to engage members on a wide variety of issues as evidenced by recent posts on short sales and inappropriate words in remarks or directions. […]
Will all notices of violations come back directly to the listing agent or his Broker?
Roger,
Notices of Violations are, and will be, sent to both the Listing Agent and the Listing Participant at the address and/or e-mail address listed in each person’s MLS roster information. The Listing Agent (LA1) isresponsible for payment of any fines that may be imposed for violation a of the rules.
Roger,
One point of clarification. Currently the inappropriate language violations are not being fined and are only being removed by the Compliance staff. The e-mail that is currently being sent is only notifying the List Agent that there was an issue, and that we removed the offending remarks. The Listing Pariticipant is only notified if they have their e-mail address listed in the “Office E-Mail” field in the Brokerage’s Roster information. The automatic template (in the iCheck program) for those e-mails can only pull the Participant’s e-mail from that particular field in Tempo.
When ARMLS does start imposing fines for these violations, we will ensure that the participant is copied on the e-mail and/or physical letter.
Paul Kriewall
ARMLS Compliance Officer
One problem I have with violation notices going to the email address on file with the Roster is this; that same Roster is used by SPAM harvesters and consequently I use an email address that is little more than a dumpster. The chances of me finding a valuable email in the daily barage of hundreds of spams it miniscule. Can we have an email address on file that would not be visible to anyone outside the ARMLS Staff?
James,
This is not only a great idea it’s a project we already plan to start working on fairly soon after conversion. We recognize the need for a private email address through which ARMLS can communicate with its subscribers, one that is not able to be captured or scraped by data miners. Our planned subscriber management system will be able to accommodate. By this time next year we will be fully electronic in all our messaging, including annual billing.
Bob Bemis, CEO
ARMLS
Do we have a list of words that are automatically red flagged as potential fair housing issues. If so can this be published somewhere?
I was told we CANNOT put anything about “Commission Changes” in the REALTOR remarks area! To me that area is to inform the other agents/Brokers out there information relative that we cannot place any where else. In the present market, banks are changing the commissions even though we originally have a listing contract with the seller. Short Sales and lending institutions are violating MLS rules all over the place, but NOTHING can be done against “BIG PIE IN THE SKY WHOMEVER”. We can pull the contract, but that just hurts usl The banks can just let the properties go to REO and that leaves the original listing agents out in the cold, so we have NO CHOICE but to accept the crumbs the banks are willing to pay us. YET I canno protect myself against “arbitration” by putting in this remarks area that the Commission may change by the bank rules. I find this frustrating. We need somewhere to state that because this is a Short Sale, we could get it in the shorts! I cannot afford to list something at %, then have to pay more than 1/2 of whatever the banks are willing to pay. WHY is this not a place for us to show this could be a problem. This I truly don’t understand. There is NO WHERE else to place it and VERBALLY stating this to another agent does not cover our backsides! I do NOT want to deal with law suits or arbritrations over commission, and right now this is a very big deal in this industry. Your rules against this need to change and quickly.
KND,
The board of directors of ARMLS, those who are responsible for our rules, has considered this issue many times in the past months and have specifically not allowed such direct statements affecting commission offers to be included in Remarks.
There are two ways to deal with this situation under our current rules.
One is to be sure to use both the “AAR Multiple Counter
Offer” and the “AAR Short Sale Addendum” when writing a contract. The other is to state, in the REALTOR remarks, that addendums are required and the buyer’s agent should “Contact listing office for addendums before writing contract.” The addendums referenced can include a revision of the cooperative compensation offer, negotiated directly between the brokerages, BEFORE the contract is presented. More information is found in our Short Sale FAQ document posted at http://www.armls.com/pdfs/ShortSaleQARev3.pdf .
BB
The problem, Bob, is that when using the MULTIPLE counter offer, the perception is that there are MANY offers on the home. Most of my clients will not bother with this if they don’t feel they at least have a slim chance of getting the home. Most of the folks I work with are wanting to move as soon as possible. We cannot control the lender time frames, so the MCO just adds one more problem. It has been the long standing ruling of ARMLS and the BOARDS that whatever is offered in the MLS at the time the agent pulls the listing, that is the Commission offered to the co-broke office. Havine someone call prior to writing an offer, still does not get us over this miserable hump. Since the prevailing thing for arbritration is that whatever is ON the listing at the time the agent pulls the listing (even thought hat can change the next few minutes), that is the commission offered. There is NO WAY that I can see, because it is NOT stated on the MLS anywhere for a cooperating Broker/Agent to see, for those of us (and there are MANY) stuck with lower than offered commissions. This needed to re-sonsidered by the Powers that Be! It is very frustrating for all of us. Even with aa “negotiated” change, these agents still seem to think they are entitlted to the higher commissions. There has to be a way to change this wtihout going through all the things suggested by your above comment. Our Board turns a deaf ear to this, which like many, I wish we had an “alternative”. I’m very tired of not being heard! Thanks for letting me vent a little. Know this isn’t a forum for that.
My comment is participants continue to market the home as active without changing the status from active to pending - AWC - AWC-1. The rules state 72 hours excluding weekend or postal holidays. Has this changed? How in the world can this message get out to the subscibers.
Also, subscribers lend out their infor mation to non subscibers. Can we get the word out on these issues?
KND & RD make very valid points regarding agent activities that in large part they are forced into by the lending institutions that they are working for.
1. Commission changes. Good idea to get the addendums before sending in the contract. We now provide them upfront. Some of these, like the one from Wachovia, requires the Buyer to sign away any right to arbitration and leaves open the possibility for the bank to unilaterally declare the Buyer in breach and take their earnest money. The Buyer then has no recourse. The title company, in order to get the banks title business, has to agree to the process thereby negating thier neutral status. We will not in good consciene allow our Buyers to sign such a document.
2. Banks (Wells Fargo) requiring the agent to reject all contract offers on an active listing and redirect the Buyer / Buyers agent to an auction company. Leaves the listing active as a marketing tool.
Banks seem to have moved their focus of their unethical lending tactics to enethical sales tactic and are drawing the agents into litigation exposure.