Now that practice changes have taken effect, ensure consumers are treated equally by developing policies to guide your conversations about compensation.

As a real estate professional, you know the best way to provide equal service is to be consistent in your business practices and how you treat each client. That consistency is key now that practice changes are in effect and you endeavor to address your compensation with clients.

You need to establish consistent policies and procedures for how you’ll guide the compensation conversation—and follow those practices every time. This is where your fair housing expertise comes into play. Pair your knowledge of your responsibilities and your clients’ rights under the law, as well as how to avoid implicit bias, with the information you have on NAR’s proposed settlement at facts.realtor to inform your strategy around the compensation conversation.

“The settlement will result in a new system for compensating buyers’ agents, which will likely produce many different payment options and levels of service,” says attorney Robert Schwemm, who is the Ashland-Spears Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus at the University of Kentucky College of Law. “Agents who offer multiple compensation options will inevitably deal with buyers, sellers and other agents on different terms.”

There’s nothing wrong with providing options, adds Schwemm, but the hallmark of fair housing compliance is consistency. So, the variety of approaches that agents and consumers adopt means there will be many opportunities for differential treatment. “Such differential treatment may lead to feelings of unfairness and discrimination, which, in turn, may raise fair housing issues,” Schwemm continues. “Don’t be surprised if fair housing groups use testers to see if buyers’ agents are discriminating on the basis of race or other prohibited factors.”