The Board of Directors asked us to share with you a statistic we compiled for them – Staff has been concerned because fines continue to increase (and we hate fining, believe it or not!) and we have so many paperwork issues lately.  I asked Kim to track her follow-up for August, and you’ll probably be surprised to know that almost 40% of the Exclusive Right to Sell Agreements need some sort of attention by the Board Office staff.  Mostly it is just sloppy mistakes, but we can’t figure out how these mistakes are getting past the agent’s eye as well as the broker’s eye.  With only a few blank fields on an Exclusive and one, universal deadline  (2 business days) we’re more than a little fearful to wonder how badly the complex and detailed Purchase and Sale Agreements are completed.

For the first time in our history, 2 brokerages have Code of Ethics hearings coming up to address excessive MLS violations.  Staff followed up with 151 contracts out of 395 new listings entered … and many cases had to follow up several times for each issue.  It would be a big help to take an extra minute to look through the agreement, to give the broker signing the agreement enough time to check it over as well, and then to SEND IT TO US BEFORE WE ASK FOR IT.  Gosh, that’d be great.  Here is the list of what actually went wrong…

August 2014 Contract Follow Up (August 1^st– August 31^st)

• 41 Begin and/or end date different in the MLS to the contract
• 37 Late Contracts – required follow-up
• 16 No broker signature, date, and/or initials
• 15 No Seller date their signature, date, and/or initials
• 9 Wrote the end date on the contract as */*/2014 (already expired)- Requires a change and seller(s)’ initials
• 6 Entered the wrong end date in MLS causing listing to automatically expire
• 6 Wrong price listed in MLS or on contract
• 5 Old contract used requiring resubmission on new contract
• 3 Changed the Listing date to modify the Days on the Market incorrectly
• 3 Wrong address on contract
• 2 No brokerage listed on the contract

Additionally:

• 8 Failure to Responds – required follow up multiple times to get the item corrected.

We’ve found time and time again that sloppy paperwork often leads to invalid contracts. Garbage in, garbage out…and we know you rely on this for your livelihood. We want to make sure you are working on homes that have valid commitments to (1) sell to buyers (2) pay commission to agents. It might seem trivial to you because you’re busy or rushed, but this is a contract. A legally binding (or not binding) one. We know, without a doubt, that it’s a hassle to get the seller’s signature on a contract change. We also know that everyone in the MLS rely upon the basic fact that a listing agent is doing a proper job with paperwork required to list it for sale – and that brokers review all of the agreement before signing / sending to the MLS). Without a solid foundation in listing a home for sale, the offers of cooperation and compensation can be void.