Updated MLS Rules & Regulations

The Board of Directors has adopted changes to the Rules and Regulations of our MLS, last updated in March 2019.

Changes effective May 1, 2020 include implementing NAR’s Clear Cooperation Policy, requiring status changes within one business day, and requiring disclosure of Leasehold status at the start of public remarks.

Summary of Changes

The changes cover three main topics:

1. NAR’s Clear Cooperation Policy

All MLSs are required to adopt this policy, which effectively requires that any property that is marketed to the public be listed in the MLS within one business day. You can review our introduction to this policy from earlier this month.

2. Status Changes Required Within One Business Day

The Clear Cooperation Policy sets a one-business-day deadline to list a property that’s being publicly marketed. To reduce confusion over different deadlines for different actions, and to ensure that our members always have the most current and accurate information available, all status changes must also be reported in the MLS within one business day.

3. Disclosure of Leasehold Status Required at Beginning of Public Remarks

In January, to ensure compliance with Hawaii state law, we introduced a feature wherein a Leasehold property listing would have the phrase, “This is a Leasehold property,” inserted at the beginning of its public remarks. This rule change makes this disclosure a requirement.

Review Rule Changes in Detail

To review an annotated version of the updated MLS Rules and Regulations, click here.

The sections specific to the Clear Cooperation Policy are as follows:

Article III Listing procedures.

Section 3.00. Clear cooperation. Within one (1) business day of marketing a property to the public, the listing broker must submit the listing to the MLS for cooperation with other MLS Participants. Public marketing includes, but is not limited to, flyers displayed in windows, yard signs, digital marketing on public facing websites, brokerage website displays (including IDX and VOW), digital communications marketing (email blasts), multi-brokerage listing sharing networks, and applications available to the general public.

NOTE: Exclusive listing information for required property types must be filed and distributed to other MLS Participants for cooperation under the Clear Cooperation Policy. This applies to listings filed under Article III and listings exempt from distribution under Section 3.03 of the Rules, and any other situation where the listing broker is publicly marketing an exclusive listing that is required to be filed with the service and is not currently available to other MLS Participants. […]

Section 3.03. Exempted listings. If the seller refuses to permit a required listing to be disseminated by the service, the participant may take the listing as an office exclusive, provided the seller shall sign the service’s approved “Certification to Withhold from MLS” form or another written certification requesting the listing to be withheld from MLS. The listing broker shall deliver to the service the Certification to Withhold from MLS form, signed by the listing broker certifying that the listing broker provided the form to the seller, and the seller’s written certification (whether on the service’s form or in another form chosen by the seller), signed by the seller within the time specified as the time for submission of required listings.

NOTE: MLS Participants must distribute exempt listings within (1) one business day once the listing is publicly marketed. See Section 3.00 Clear Cooperation. Note that direct promotion of the listing between the brokers and licensees affiliated with the listing brokerage, and one-to-one promotion between these licensees and their clients, is not considered public marketing.

The sections specific to timely updates are as follows:

Section 3.07. Time of submission. The participant must submit a required listing within one (1) business day after execution of the contractual agreement, unless the participant publicly markets the listing in which case it must be submitted in accordance with Section 3.00.

Section 3.15. Change of status of listing. The listing broker must submit all status changes, including change in list price or terms, pending sale, withdrawal, or extension, to the service within one (1) business day of the time they become effective.

Section 5.11. Reporting resolutions of contingencies. The listing broker must submit notice to the service that a contingency on a listing record has been fulfilled or renewed, or the agreement cancelled, by putting the listing back into an active status according to the service’s “back-on-market” procedure, if the listing agreement has not expired. This notice is due within one (1) business day of the time the change becomes effective.

Section 5.12. Reporting cancellation of pending sale. The listing broker must submit notice to the service of the cancellation of any pending sale and reinstate the subject listing immediately according to the service’s “back-on-market” procedure. This notice is due within one (1) business day of the time the change becomes effective.

And sections specific to Leasehold property disclosure are as follows:

Section 3.12. Required listing elements. The listing broker shall include the following elements in each listing record when submitting it, so that potential cooperating brokers will have advance, unambiguous notice of them. […]

j. Disclosure that the property is a leasehold property, if applicable, in the public remarks. For all leasehold property listings, the listing broker must begin the public remarks with the following phrase: “This is a leasehold property.”

These updated MLS Rules and Regulations will be posted to the REsearch login page for easy reference. If you have questions, please contact us!