NAR Directors OK New Standards for REALTOR® Associations

In a sweeping move to improve the professionalism of associations of REALTORS® across the country and the level of service they provide to members, the NAR Board of Directors last week passed a set of mandatory standards that touch on every aspect of association operations. The action was taken as part of the Mid-Year Legislative & Business Meetings in Washington, D.C.

The recommendations came from an Organizational Alignment Presidential Advisory Group (PAG), which drafted the standards. Specifically, the country's approximately 1,400 state, local, and territorial associations have to meet standards in six areas: 1) Code of Ethics education and enforcement, 2) advocacy, 3) consumer outreach, 4) organizational unification, 5) technology, and 6) financial solvency.
 
Among other things, under the new standards, associations must:

• Provide Code of Ethics training.
• Participate in legislative and political "Calls for Action."
• Make an effort to collect fair-share contributions to the REALTORS® Political Action Committee.
• Promote the value proposition of using a REALTOR®.
• Maintain a strategic or business plan.
• Maintain a website with links to other levels of the association.
• Meet minimum financial performance.

The Board approved up to $20 million to help associations meet their new responsibilities: $5 million helps associations create or update their strategic plan; $3 million helps states implement the standards; and $12 million to facilitate association mergers or dissolutions. (NOTE: SAMCAR is already close to meeting or exceeds the PAG recommendations.)

In conjunction with this action, the Board of Directors also approved an overhaul of NAR's processes leading to the election of candidates for NAR leadership. The changes are intended to shorten and increase the transparency of the process. Under the changes, the Nominating Committee is changed to the Credentials and Campaign Rules Committee. The committee will no longer nominate candidates but will review candidates against objective criteria and qualify them based on the criteria.

The criteria include 1) no personal bankruptcy within the last seven years, 2) no personal foreclosures within the last seven years, 3) a credit score above the baseline required for a mortgage backed by the FHA, and 4) no current delinquent federal, state, and local tax filings or payments.

Candidates not qualified by the committee will be able to appeal. For those cleared to run, the election timeline is shortened to a ten-month timeframe, to begin August 1 and run through the election the following May. Aspects of the process requiring a constitutional change will go before the NAR Delegate Body at its meeting in November. If approved, the changes take effect Jan. 1, 2015.