This focuses on an ethics change that came down at the last board of directors meeting a couple weeks ago at the NAR convention, the virtual convention. And it was not without controversy, but it did pass. So I’m not gonna focus on the controversy so much on the arguments for against it and whether or not it’s a good thing, the debate’s done, I think pretty much everything was said about it that could be said and ultimately it was passed. And it was implemented immediately. So coming out of that meeting, it was good to go. So I just wanted to kind of tell you what it does, and maybe a little bit what it doesn’t do but a lot of confusion, maybe a lot has been said about it. So hopefully, hopefully you’ve seen something about it so you know what I’m talking about.
Really, the controversy came from there were a few changes all kind of sprinkled together. But the controversy came from policy statement 29 which said, “A realtor shall be subject to disciplinary action under the code of ethics with respect to all of their activities”. Might not seem very controversial on its face but considering what policy statements when I used to say it’s a pretty drastic change.
It used to say, “You’re encouraged to follow the code of ethics and all your activities, but you’re only subject to discipline with respect to real estate related activities and transactions involving the Realtor”. So it’s a big change, they really have just turned this thing completely around. They took statement 29 and reversed it. So now they’re saying, “Nope, it applies to everything” which you know, for an attorney we look and say, “Whoa, now the code of ethics now looks at every aspect of your life.” I’ll tell you why it’s not as drastic as it may sound. As I looked through the code of ethics, and I’ve not done a deep dive to look at every possible action that could be taken in your real life, your entire life.
Really, almost all of the articles in the code of ethics are speaking directly to a client, agent relationship or a transaction. So it’s going to be hard to apply those in any other way. So I don’t think it’s going to really affect most of the articles. The one it will and the one they were targeting was Article 10. And that’s the “don’t discriminate” article. So really what happened is, they didn’t like that if a realtor member was saying discriminatory things, posting discriminatory things on social media, that unless it dealt with a transaction or unless it was advertising, the realtor organization could not do anything about it. It was not actionable and now this change makes it actionable.
So just know that it has to be discriminatory language based on the classes, we call them in Article 10. So it’s a race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, national origin, sexual orientation, or gender identity. So if somebody’s posting something on one of those, and it’s seen as discriminatory on one of those regarding one of those classes, that now they could be even if it’s their, you know, separate page, it’s not their realtor page, they could technically be brought in on complaint for violating the code of ethics. And so just be aware of that. They also took the willful out of the discrimination language, so it doesn’t have to be willful if it’s, that will be up for up to a panel to decide, was it discriminatory language? Was it discriminating against one of these groups? If it was then the realtor can be sanctioned.
So pretty interesting. I mean, I hope people are not posting discriminatory things anyway. So for most of us hopefully, this isn’t even a thing. But very fascinating from Attorney’s perspective that we’re now taking the code and saying, “Oh, it applies in a broader sense to your life”. And so that’s what caused the controversy that you maybe heard some buzz about, but it has passed and so just know that, that all of your posts can be subject to this rule to not discriminate against these classes. So hopefully that helps. Yeah. Thanks for tuning in, and we’ll catch you next time.