From November 10, 2012, NAR Professional Standards Committee Meeting:

1.       Passed motion to allow hearing panels (during hearing) or panel chair (prior to hearing) to determine if an arbitration or ethics complaint is timely filed, whether arbitrable issues exist, whether arbitration requests are too legally complex and other administrative issues.

2.       Passed, subject to approval by Delegate Body, to amend Article 10 to add "gender identity" as a protected class.  Delegate Body is scheduled to meet in November 2013, but it's possible that they will meet in May 2013.  Nonetheless, Code of Ethics is only amended on January 1.

3.      Passed motion to allow associations to charge administrative processing fee to each of multiple respondents found in violation of Code of Ethics.  For finding of guilt, each respondent can be charged up to $500.  For single request for review filed by multiple respondents, only a single deposit (up to $500) may be charged.

4.      Passed motion for suspension of ethics filing deadlines while a potential respondent is not a member.  Only comes in to play if a REALTOR ®quits the association and later rejoins.

5.      Sent back to Subcommittee:  consideration of notice of ethics complaints to be given to complainant's principal broker.

6.      Passed motion to make arbitration, with a non-REALTOR ®, non-MLS member, optional for a REALTOR ®.

From November 10, 2012, NAR Professional StandardsMembership Meeting:

1.      Sent to Work Group for further investigation and recommendation:  C.A.R.'s request to allow local associations to treat serious civil judgments the same as criminal convictions, for purposes of determining whether to approve an application for association membership.  NAR policy currently allows a local to look back 10 years at a criminal conviction, but only 3 years for a civil judgment.  NAR wants to determine if civil judgments are a problem in other states and is looking for examples of those problems for further evaluation by the Committee.