TAR to allow anonymous Ethics Complaints

This just in from my morning Texas Association of REALTORS email!

Podcast: Why anonymous ethics complaints will be allowed
Listen now to find out how the new professional standards citation policy—which streamlines complaint resolution as well as allowing anonymous complaints—will elevate the ethical standards of Texas REALTORS®. Also, get details about how your experience, income, business practices, and more compare to your colleagues.


Now I'm not really excited about the "anonymous" part of the new complaint process. I think if people want to file a complaint, they should have backbone enough to sign their name to it, but I DO support the other changes that come with the change, and here's why.

The current process, although fantastic for major complaints from consumers and other REALTORS®, requires that the complainant spend an incredible amount of time dealing with the whole process. What ends up happening is if we as Texas REALTORS® are not personally impacted by the improper actions of another Texas REALTOR, we do nothing in terms of working to "right the wrong" for the rest of the folks.

Why? Because it takes too much time. We are currently required to submit the complaint, substantiate the complaint, then sit in an actual hearing to submit the complaint to a panel (I'm way over simplifying here but you get the point). So, if one of our colleagues in the field is doing something that violates our REALTOR® Code of Ethics, and we have already (hopefully) called them or emailed them letting them know that there's a violation going on, we have to spend hours trying to get the person to comply. That's hours away from what we do to make money - helping people buy and sell Real Estate.

I'm not saying that our actions are right. I'm saying that's what we do. Unless we or our clients have a personal financial impact from the wrong doings of another REALTOR®, we often don't take the time to work to correct the issue.

And it's not that there are no issues. Give me thirty seconds on Craigslist and I can give you a list of violations. But am I going to spend time trying to correct each wrong? Absolutely not. And here's why.

Agent training is a broker responsibility. As a broker, I am responsible for the actions of my agents. If I am made aware of an issue, I guarantee you that it will be corrected immediately. I also guarantee you that if one of my agents is contacted by another REALTOR® and made aware of an issue, they will correct it immediately on their own, without my prompting. Why? Because they know that is what is expected of them.

Austin, and I'm sure many other cities, have a few brokerages that appear to write their own rules. Or maybe they just have no idea that there ARE rules. These companies and their agents do pretty much whatever they want to do. They may or may not be made aware of any problems, and if they are, they may or may not do anything about it. It is my opinion that some brokers, both large and small, have no interest or desire to make sure their agents are following the license law or our REALTOR® Code of Ethics. They either don't care, or more likely, have no idea that there is a violation because they don't know the license law or Code of Ethics themselves.

SO....that's why I think anonymous complaints are fantastic. Consumers and agents can submit a complaint and know that it will be addressed without the consumer or agent having to spend their own time doing it.

*Steps off soap box*