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Association News, Industry News, NARProposed Code change forbids discrimination due to ‘sexual orientation’
REALTORS® will be prohibited from discriminating against individuals based on their sexual orientation if a proposed change to NAR’s Code of Ethics is approved by the NAR Delegate Body at the NAR Convention in November.
Article 10 of the Code of Ethics currently forbids REALTORS® from discriminating against any protected classes (race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status or national origin) listed in the federal Fair Housing law. NAR’s Professional Standards Committee approved a change (video) to Article 10 and to Standard of Practice 10-3 so the list now reads “race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, national origin or sexual orientation.”Â
PAR members Bill Lublin, 2009 NAR Professional Standards chair and Dominic Cardone, 2010 vice-chair, shepherded the change at NAR. PAR’s Professional Standards and Equal Opportunity/Cultural Diversity committees, along with the PAR Board of Directors, voted to support an expansion of the article at the January Business Meeting.
In other developments in NAR professional standards:
Local associations are now encouraged to return all or part of arbitration filing fees when parties reach a successful resolution through mediation. Although the committee approved this rule, it won’t officially be included in the manual until 2011. Many PAR local associations have already adopted such a policy.
REALTORS® who change brokerages may continue to advertise their involvement in transactions that happened with a previous broker, as long as the advertisement has a disclaimer. A new case interpretation helps to clarify the rights of agents to advertise their role in property sales after they leave a brokerage. The disclaimer must state something like “some of these properties were sold while I was affiliated with another firm.”
A Â complete list of approved rules changes by the NAR Professional Standards Committee is available.
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Kim Shindle is the Manager of Media Relations at the Pennsylvania Association of Realtors®. |
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Is this portion of our society now a federally, protected class? Does NAR really want to dole out disciplinary action on a licensee when there is no federal protection? Does NAR want to spend association funds (our dues) defending lawsuits by those licensees who receive disciplinary actions against them unjustly? I will give complete service to any clients regardless of their sexual orientation as I have in the past… I am not sure this is a wise move on the part of NAR…
Regarding the Fair Housing Act:
Definition: A federal law, passed in 1968 and amended in 1988, that protects prospects and tenants against housing discrimination based on race, color, religion, national origin, sex, familial status and disability. These groups of people are known as protected classes.
Also Known As: FHA, Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968
Does anyone see anything about sexual orientation?
I agree with non discrimination but adding sexual orintation could be used for say a pedophile or anything along that line too. Whould any one out there want to help a pedophile find a house in their neighborhood. I see problems if someone wants to take it to this level and it will happen.
@Smoky, at which topic is your question directed?
Are you kidding me?