What does come to mind, is the nightmare of enforcement. Suppose next Monday all offenders were reported. I don’t know all the rules, but I guess they get a hearing. That means a jury. That means jury duty for someone. If it’s a committee member, will they have the time. What about an appeals process. I imagine an eventual lawsuit against the Board, restraint of trade, etc. would materialize and slow the enforcement process.

It’s a freak’n mess for sure. I am encouraged by the evolving ability for consumers to rate their agents. Consumer power is the mightiest.

Great points all….

How about a little due diligence?

I’ve sat on both sides of the interview desk on many occasions through my career. It’s OK to ask prospective agents questions. News travels fast in our industry.If there are anecdotes or gossip about someone’s ethics, ask them about it. Ask them for their side of the story. If they can’t adequately account for their behavior, send them down the street.

If the brokers skillfully interview agents, they can keep the charlatans out before they commit ethics violations.

a.) The “Code of Ethics” is a inherently bad title. I cannot regulate “ethical” behavior… They are in fact a standard of practice, but I cannot make you ethical in a three hour class every two years. All I can do is teach you NAR’s rules of conduct. Too many times agents come to me with gripes about another agents such as “they never return phone calls” or “the other agent was just rude”. Those aren’t violations, they are bad business practices…or lack of “professional courtesy” There’s really no way to regulate that and it appears in every aspect of life.

b.) The peer based NAR Professional Standards system is a good concept, but occasionally those panels are woefully under prepared. Our Association works hard at finding experienced and educated folks, but not all Associations do. I’d like to see a two day very demanding annual re certification program for all professional standards members. That’s just me…

c.) I don’t know if anyone is doing this, but I’d like to see a highly trained state investigator in every local jurisdiction who is able to take on some of the ongoing issues, do random spot checks for Brokerage compliance and investigate complaints, using the complainant as a witness. Then taking the matter to the Pro Standards Committee or Real Estate Board for a hearing. It’s expensive and will terrorize even the good agents, but it’s the only option (IMHO) other than what we’re doing…

The answer IS to “keep on fighting” but like Matt S. said, at some point, you still have to do business. Of course, you could continue the fight and the other agent gets a slap on the wrist, a warning or nothing and you have wasted hours trying to fix an obvious problem.

My own experience has been the powers that be like to hold up the “self policing proclamation”, while deciding who has to play by the rules.

Regardless of how many times we write about it, the truth is, the process is time consuming and hinders our business.

The Bar association has a test that lasts for 5 days. One entire day is devoted only to a test on ethics. They ruthlessly self-regulate. When an attorney violates one of their code provisions, there’s a formal system in place to gather all the facts, etc. We offer members a mandatory 3 hour class every four years.

Regulating ethical conduct takes time and money. If an industry wants to raise the bar on professional conduct and ethics, then the industry should be prepared to pay their due$ in order to raise the professional conduct for all.

All attorneys must be a member of a state Bar.

Not all real estate agents are required to be a member of their state assoc of Realtors.

These changes can happen gradually but they must come from within the profession itself.

Yes there will always be sociopaths in any profession much like what Lani describes. It is up to that profession to quickly identify them and kick them out.

Sometimes they are the top producers…..

Bill and Matthew are right. Realtors need to be educated on the long term (good) consequences of the minor time invested to make the industry better.

There are many paths to follow.

Here’s another suggestion. What about creating a mentorship system where new agents would be mentored for the first X number of years of their career? We’ve moved away from having sales managers or any kind of supervision of agents nowadays and I think we have a decade’s worth of agents who could use a Realtor Code of Ethics mentor, one on one.

So many times I hear Realtors in class saying “that’s not ethical!” when talking about what one agent is doing. However, maybe that person’s conduct actually is ethical but the first Realtor was missing some key facts. When people talk WITH each other directly, without some scary enforcement mechanism looming overhead, we might see that instead of ethics problems we have communications problems instead.

I was in a recent meeting with a bunch of top Realtors, discussing this very issue. I asked the dozen or so Realtors in the room how many had ever *ever* filed an ethics complaint. Only one raised his hand.

Until we get our leaders to buy into the “policing our own” façade, how can we expect “boots on the ground” Realtors to abide by either the ethics or the policing option?

Another example – in a Realtor board of 10k+ agents, last year there were 40 ethics complaints, ~ 10 of which were filed by the public. Does anyone think that there are so few violations?

The system is broken.

All I can do is lead by example.

Matt S. Go back to your board and make a formal complaint that the agent violated Article 12 of the Code of Ethics – that’s the “true picture” article of the code – If the agent failed to present a true picture in thier representations to the public, they can be found in violation of the code – If you need help framing the complaint just call me or DM me on twitter – but you have the basis of a legit complaint – which the hearing panel may or may not determine constitutes a violation of the code – but that’s due process –

Lani – The enforcement mechanism for our industry is not the crack addicts, they’re the five-oh – the po-po – the Professional Standards committees – and they’re generally not the bad guys – just use them – its why they volunteer

@Lani Wow you can really paint a picture! “just SEE if you don’t come back to a crackless counter and a dude licking your walls and rearranging your furniture.”

That’s a great question, but I think you answered your own question. It’s not that there wasn’t enforcement options, but it was that you didn’t feel the issue arose to the level that it was more important to pursue your other work than to spend the time to write the complaint.

I would imagine that your state has regulations against deceptive or misleading marketing, if not the Code of Ethics does. So even if the MLS committee was a bunch of wing-nuts, there were still options for you.

You decided directly or indirectly that your energy was better spent elsewhere. That’s ok… Not ever battle is yours. But the burden of proof of a potential infraction should be yours to put together – otherwise we just have people filing complaints just to harass you and investigators spinning their wheels on complaints with no basis; all the while detracting their attention from honest-to-goodness issues.

Lani,

The policing-yourselves may be a joke… but it is what is. With the exception of sting operations, most of America’s justice system is based on someone needing to sign a complaint somewhere. There may be some independent police work to the contrary; but the vast majority of those law enforcement actions still require a victim or witness to call the Police to file a report or to go to the magistrate and swear out a warrant. I can’t call 911 and say that someone just beat the crap out of me, hang up and never to speak to someone expecting that the assailant will get found arrested and disciplined without my involvement.