Should You Make a Blanket Offer of Compensation on Your Website #NARsettlment #floridarealtors
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So you may have noticed that during the webinar, we have had members
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of the Florida Realtors® hotline answering your questions for you.
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And I'd also like to thank you all for submitting so many wonderful questions in advance of the webinar.
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These questions are very helpful and allowing us to develop products, services, and tools
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that you need in order to help you pivot and transition
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into this post NAR settlement world. So I'm going to take a little time today
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and personalize this settlement for Florida. As I mentioned, you know, this settlement
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is designed to address all of the state's, all of the local associations,
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all of the multiple listing services. So it gives us guidance. But now we have to take that, and we have to apply it
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to our state laws and our business practices. And that is the difficulty that many of you have faced.
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So I hope to spend a little time today trying to ease some of that, pain for so many of you.
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But if there are questions that we still don't answer, as Margy mentioned earlier, I sure hope you will give us
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a call on the hotline and help us to, best help you. So let's break some of this down.
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Bear with me while I grab my eyes. Here. So let's talk a little bit about the policy changes
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that NAR has given us in advance of August 17th. I touched on them a little bit just a moment ago,
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but I want to remind you of those as we talk about the questions that we've received.
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What MLS policies have changed? well, there are a number of specific
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MLS policies that, we have received from NAR.
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Specifically, they have eliminated and prohibited any requirement for offers of compensation.
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We know that they have, required
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that the MLS, eliminate all broker compensation fields, right, so that the MLS can no longer,
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encourage or facilitate those offers. So the fields themselves will go away.
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And here's a big one. And this is one we hear from you all frequently under the
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what if category. We get a lot of hypotheticals about possible alternatives
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for this system that used to exist. And I encourage that kind of ingenuity and creativity, but only to a point,
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because as you're thinking about how to craft new policies, I need to remember this language.
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That new policy prohibits the use of MLS data and data feeds to directly or indirectly,
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directly or indirectly establish or maintain a platform of offers of compensation
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from multiple broker to other buyer representatives. So when you come up with these questions, Juana, can I use this
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as an alternative to providing MLS offers of comp? You gotta remember that the settlement prohibits
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the use of any MLS data or feeds in order to directly or indirectly kind of create a workaround, right?
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That's not what we're doing here. We're not creating workarounds. If it is a, a, option
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that would allow multiple brokers to provide offers of comp to other buyer representatives,
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it cannot use the MLS data or data feeds in order to accomplish that.
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All right. So those are the prohibitions. Now, we talked about the two elements.
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Eliminate the offer compensation. Require the written by a broker agreement.
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Let's talk a little bit about the written buyer broker agreements. So I mentioned this I'm going to I'm going to cover it again.
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So it's fresh in our mind as you know in terms of how we cover these questions.
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What must be included in these written agreements? The specific and conspicuous disclosure of the amount
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or rate of compensation, okay, or how that amount will be determined.
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We know that. The amount of compensation in a manner that is objectively ascertainable
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and not open ended, objectively ascertainable. That's really just kind of fancy for is it clear?
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Right. Can I, as a layperson, not experienced with the business,
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as a non-lawyer non-realtor®, can a consumer read it and know how the compensation is derived?
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That's what they mean by objectively ascertainable. You don't have any subjective knowledge of the industry.
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You are objectively able to understand what the compensation is.
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A term that prohibits the participant from receiving compensation for brokerage services
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from any source that exceeds the amount or rate agreed upon in the agreement with the buyer.
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And finally, a conspicuous statement that the broker fees and commissions are not set by law and are fully negotiable.
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So keep that in mind as we now get into the questions. So what forms are required, Juana, give me forms.
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