Canadian Realtors end spat with regulators 

Flickr photo courtesy of David Paul Ohmer.

The Canadian Real Estate Association ended a 3 1/2-year battle with regulators Sunday by ratifying a consent agreement that the Competition Bureau of Canada says will prohibit CREA's member boards and associations from imposing anticompetitive rules on flat-fee, limited-service brokerages.

The Competition Bureau served CREA with a court order in March 2007, after Canada's equivalent of the National Association of Realtors published a set of rule interpretations that barred the "mere posting" of listings in multiple listing services without the provision of other services.

That, and other CREA rules -- such as requirements that a listing Realtor act as an agent for the seller throughout the entire period of a listing agreement, and receive and present all offers and counteroffers to the seller -- have virtually eliminated fee-for-service real estate brokerages in Canada, the Competition Bureau alleged.

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