At the Board of Directors meeting on June 21, the following rules were updated. The link to the updated rules under Links, Links & Documents has been updated.

Section 1.2a now includes “Pictures should no longer be deleted from a listing once marked Sold/Rented because the listing agreement has ended.”

Section 1.3 now includes “Office exclusive listings cannot be entered by the Selling Agent when a listing agreement is in place. If a listing agreement is not in place (in the case of builders or FSBO’s) written permission will need to be on file in the Selling Office before it can be entered.”

Section 2.5 the amount of time for a listing to be marked Sold is now seventy-two (72) hours.

Section 9.1a clarifies the difference between violations with a timeframe and without a timeframe. Please note this includes changing statuses as well as entering a picture, returning or transferring a keybox, or any other rule that includes a timeframe. It now reads:

“Section 9.1a Database Violations: Any Participant or Subscriber may report a listing for a database violation to the MLS Administrator. The unauthorized extension or renewal of listings, and incorrect information in any data field(s), including the required submission of at least one photograph that meets the requirements of Section 1.2a, are subject to the enforcement process specified as follows:

Upon discovery of a violation or receipt of a reported violation that does not include a timeframe, the MLS Administrator will contact both the Participant and the Subscriber regarding the alleged violation requesting correction and referencing MLS rules compliance in Section 7. The Participant or Subscriber will have three (3) calendar days to correct the violation. If the violation is not corrected within three (3) calendar days, the Participant will receive a one hundred dollar ($100) fine and the listing will be deleted. If the fine is not paid within thirty (30) calendar days from the date of the fine the Listing Agent (Participant or Subscriber) will be suspended from the MLS until the fine is paid per Section 7.1a. After three (3) subsequent reported violations of the same nature by the Participant or Subscriber, the Participant or Subscriber will be reported to the MLS Committee for review of database violations and may be subject to additional fines or penalties as set forth in the MLS Rules and Regulations.

Upon discovery of a violation or receipt of a reported violation that does include a timeframe, an automatic fine will be issued in an email to the Participant and Subscriber, and the violation must be corrected immediately.

Any extension or renewal of a listing must be signed by the seller(s) and be on file with the listing broker.

Status change descriptions and time frames for compliance are outlined below.

• Late submission of listing – Participant or Subscriber must input listing into the MLS System within seventy-two (72) hours after all necessary signatures have been obtained.
• Late reporting of “Under Contract” status – Participant or Subscriber must report status of Under Contract within twenty-four (24) hours after all signatures are obtained. Listings are considered Under Contract within the option period and shall be reported as such.
• Late reporting of “Contingency” status – Participant or Subscriber must report status of Contingency within twenty-four (24) hours after all signatures are obtained.
• Late reporting of “Sold” status – Participant or Subscriber must report status of Sold within seventy-two (72) hours after closing and funding. The funding date is the date on the settlement statement.
• Late reporting of “Rented” status – Participant or Subscriber must report status of Rented within twenty-four (24) hours after all signatures are obtained.

All Farm Road names have now been changed to FM names. For example, Farm Road 41 is now FM 41. This means all current and future listings, as well as previous listings for the past 3 years now show FM instead of Farm Road. If the street name auto-populates from the tax data and the tax data has the street name as something other than FM, you will still need to look up the street name to ensure the listing submits successfully.

New features:

Private Pictures: on the right of the Manage/Upload Pictures toward the bottom there are 3 options. The middle one (Mark MLS Only When Off Mkt) allows you to select any picture – except the first one, at any time before the listing goes off-market (Sold, Rented, Terminated, Expired) and it will be removed from 3^rd party sites while staying available in the MLS. This is helpful when the new owners don’t want interior pictures available online, but it still lets appraisers and agents see the pictures. Now there is no need to delete pictures from your listings.

Known issues in Rapattoni:

Unable to delete Incomplete listings

Unable to print labels from Atlas Tax

The Layers in Atlas Tax and the Interactive Map are not working.

Known issues from other sites:

Farm listings should start to syndicate to Lands.com (aka Lands of Texas) by the end of the weekend. If it is not, please email Tonya with the Listing#.

User Error Issues:

• Manually changing the status of a Coming Soon listing to Active is causing the listing to not syndicate to other sites (Zillow, Realtor.com, Redfin, agent websites). Instead of manually changing the status, go into Status Information and update the On Market Date.
• Please remember to not enter yourself as the Selling Agent unless you acted as an intermediary. The correct Selling Agent is the person representing the buyer. We have had an uptick in the number of Listing Agents entering themselves as the Selling Agent when marking the listing Sold.
• There is still a problem entering a Selling Co-Agent for teams who require a Co-Agent. The Selling Agent needs to let the Listing Agent know to enter a Selling Co-Agent, and the Selling Agent needs to enter that person as well as the agent they worked with. If someone other than the Listing Agent maintains the listings then the Listing Agent must tell them who to enter as the Selling Co-Agent.