ADRE on Advertising, Ltd Service Listings & Unlicensed Assistants

Updated April 10, 2018

Arizona REALTORS® 2015 President, Jim Sexton, and Arizona Department of Real Estate (ADRE) Commissioner, Judy Lowe, recently sat down to discuss topics and issues that concern REALTORS®.

In this second installment, Commissioner Lowe addresses a variety of timely topics.

Advertising
“What is considered an advertising complaint,” asked Sexton, “and what advertising complaints will you investigate?”

Lowe responded, “The ADRE does not usually investigate anonymous advertising complaints. We ask licensees who see violations to call the other licensee/broker and encourage them to comply with the rules.” All written and signed complaints must be investigated by ADRE.

“One of the most common advertising issues we have is failure to name the employing broker or making the team name so prominent that it appears to be a brokerage,” said Lowe. “The first question that we ask a consumer when they call the department is, Have you talked to the broker? So many times, they don’t know who their broker is, or they say — Oh, it’s the Smith Team.”

Lowe also shared that placards on telephone poles saying ‘I’ll Buy Your House,’ when the buyer is a real estate licensee, must include the employing broker’s name. “Also be aware that the licensee must not misrepresent the facts around buying the property,” she added.

Limited Service Listings
Sexton asked, “If a broker has a listing where it says, pay me ‘x’ dollars and I’ll put you into the MLS, and then I’m not doing anything else for you. Is there anything in statute where that’s a problem?”

Lowe said it would depend on “the contract between the seller and the licensee…how the rules around duties to the client were addressed…and how agency disclosure and fiduciary duty was described and understood; as well as the harm that the consumer felt they suffered in the services provided, compared to what they understood they would receive.”

Substantive Policy Statement
The Arizona REALTORS® state association assisted the ADRE with clarifying Substantive Policy Statement on Unlicensed Assistants (#2005.04) which is renumbered Substantive Policy Statement on Unlicensed Assistants (#2017.01).

Arizona REALTORS® will continue to monitor all of these issues and keep its members posted.

Lowe told Sexton at the conclusion of this interview, “You’ve done good things by allowing this collaboration and communication to happen between the Arizona REALTORS® and ADRE. Let’s partner in raising the bar.”

Read part one of this interview here, and an article related to Unlicensed Assistants here.