In part 1 we established that standards must be upheld, and we all have a role to play. Practice standards must be fair, practical and consistently sustained.

Ideally this service should be delivered at a reasonable cost by an impartial organization with credibility and intimate knowledge of what CREB^® members deal with out there.

At the end of part 1 I suggested the next part of the backgrounder would cover CREA’s enforcement requirements. Also, that I would share some thoughts on the challenges of providing a member service that typically results, in member-to-member proceedings, in one member being happy and the other unhappy. The other part of this work involves upholding our rules, and that can sometimes require us to focus not on a member’s intent or good intentions, but on the result.

The bulk of our rule’s enforcement comes after an event or an infraction. Enforcing rules and resolving disputes is high-skill work that can’t be centered necessarily on finding a win/win.

My point is that the work of our Member Practice team, the volunteers on our Professional Standards Advisory Team and on the Practice Governance Standing Committee is demanding and has to meet very high standards.

Another reality in the member surveys we conduct on all aspects of CREB^®’s products, services and supports is that achieving 100% satisfaction after a dispute resolution, or a rules enforcement event, is naturally pretty unlikely. We get this, but we also really get the importance of this work as it fundamentally supports professionalism in our industry. Part 1 established that we hear you loud and clear!

As I mentioned above, most of our work is after-the-fact, except when it comes to maintaining database integrity. Enforcing rules related to our MLS^® System is an aspect of your daily work that we have always had direct oversight over, except with the enforcement of the rules around measurement standards.

As soon as RECA started enforcing the RMS, we ceased enforcing our measurement standards to the same degree and we started to see slippage in the quality of our data. This is because the current terms in the Real Estate Act positions RECA as the only body that can enforce the RMS. RECA’s heavier and, by design, more lengthy enforcement process is the only means for measurement errors or omissions to be enforced. I could happily go on and on about the RMS and how willing real estate boards should be ‘delegated’ to enforce the RMS standard, but I’ll keep this brief.

If RECA was able to delegate RMS enforcement to boards (that could meet set requirements), boards could be enabled to spot check and respond to reported data errors in a more comprehensive way to ensure corrections to all aspects of measurement errors can be dealt with efficiently. We can dive deeper into RMS enforcement once we have the results of our current Measurement Standards Survey. You can learn more about the survey here.

I’ve mentioned that the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) has a voice in rules enforcement, but most members may not know the background to this. About eight or nine years ago CREB^® and some other Canadian boards raised concerns about CREA’s minimum board standards not setting or maintaining strong base-line requirements for service delivery by all local boards/associations. Also, CREA had great concerns about erosions in protection of the REALTOR^® trademark because there was uneven (more like non-existent in some cases) enforcement of the REALTOR^® Code. The REALTOR^® Code is a very important document that supports CREA’s responsibility to set ethical standards and to prevent misuse of the REALTOR^® brand.

The result of these concerns being shared was an update to CREA rules requiring all boards to sign a declaration that states they are fulfilling the local board’s/association’s obligation to enforce the REALTOR^® Code. Annually we sign this declaration, and all boards have the option to delegate this responsibility to another body, provincial association or another local board.

CREB^® briefly assigned this duty to AREA when our team at CREB^® was the outsourcing partner for AREA. In other words, a few years ago we assigned the duty to AREA. Then, our team at CREB^® was hired back by AREA to deliver the services for AREA’s Administrative Justice process along with CREB^®’s for all boards in the province except for the Realtors Association of Edmonton. When we were no longer administrating AREA’s process, we retracted our delegation of enforcement to AREA, and CREB^® currently is the only organization permitted to hear and decide allegations of REALTOR^® Code violations between CREB^® members.

Even at the board/association level, standards matter. CREB^® members, in fact all REALTORS^® from across Canada expect nothing less.

In part 1, I suggested AREA could add value to our rules enforcement work. In a perfect world, your provincial association and the local board/association could jointly uphold our commitment to self-regulation by working together, within their defined scope, to position our members in the most positive light with consumers.

As much as major rule violations by a ‘bad actor’ are a rare occurrence, we can conjure up scenarios where something seriously wrong happened, and our reaction is to kick that person out. Our reflex is that after committing some terrible act, that member has lost the right to call themselves a REALTOR^® and a CREB^® member. It is rare for things to get to this point, but it does happen. The problem is that ending a bad actor’s membership is not that simple.

If CREB^® decides to terminate a membership, the Cooperatives Act (Alberta), our governing legislation, requires that should the expelled party decide to appeal the decision, they be able to do so at the next meeting of members. At that next member meeting, the assembly would hear and discuss the details of the decision, then cast a final vote on the merits of the appeal. Not an ideal scenario.

In Alberta, not-for-profit boards and associations have two alternative legislative regimes to be formed under, either the Cooperatives Act or the Societies Act. For a variety of historic reasons, these governing legislation options co-exist and while these two pieces of legislation may be very similar, there are important differences. For this discussion, under the Societies Act (Alberta), a Society is required to fix in its bylaws “the conditions of withdrawal of members and the manner, if any, in which a member may be expelled”, so the AREA bylaws would govern with respect to member expulsions.

AREA’s governing legislation is the Societies Act (Alberta) and their bylaws have such a provision. There are significant advantages to having CREB^® and the other regional Boards collaborate on building out this area of compliance penalties, so we don’t have any enforcement gaps at the extreme end of the scale. AREA could set up an arm’s length entity to define these major infractions and manage an impartial process, independent of the AREA board of directors and the local boards/associations. This would be necessary because AREA Bylaw 6 empowers the AREA board of directors to make the final decision, so they must be able to consider that recommendation independently to ensure due process is not put into question. As Bylaw 6 allows for the heaviest judgment available to AREA, it is crucial to ensure a ruling will withstand any potential claim of the decision being biased. Eliminating the optics of any potential bias reduces the opportunity for reputational risk to AREA, the regional boards, and the real estate industry.

It will take careful consideration to deliberate on what such a process would involve, the merits of some form of an appeal process and the goals to establish standards higher than our licensing standards. All for another day hopefully.

CREB^® has a long history of innovation and has advocated for more efficient structures in organized real estate. This is something we are proud of, especially since it is based on meeting our members’ expectations. It is important for us all to take some time to consider how an important but sometimes unnoticed member service delivers value even if it never touches you directly.

I led off Part 1 with this statement, which I truly believe: “Every professional real estate agent knows the importance of maintaining market order and the confidence of the public.” Some would challenge this because they have seen unethical behaviour that appears to slide by. Hopefully this background helps you understand the ‘why’ behind rules management, their enforcement and dispute resolution services are an important part of your CREB^® Membership.