REVISED RULES AND REGULATIONS

A new version of the Rules and Regulations of  MLS Hawaii, Inc. d/b/a Hawaii Information Service is now available in the HIS website.  This version was adopted by the HIS Board of Directors on January 13, 2009.  Members may access the rules through the MLS Rules and Regulations link that appears on the login page under REsearch Quick Links.  The rules now include all of the amendments approved by the HIS Board of Directors since January 2006. 
 
Members should pay special attention to the revisions to the rules regarding Short Sale listings and changes to the rules regarding IDXs and VOWs.  The revisions to the IDX and VOW rules were required by the NAR/DOJ settlement.  Most of what you’ll see in Articles X and XI, is taken from the NAR MLS model rules.
 
Should you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at 1-800-628-3121 or send an email to TechSupport@HawaiiInformation.com.

ABOUT SHORT SALE LISTINGS

New Section 4.09. Short Sales
There is a new section in the revised rules that specifically addresses Short Sale Listings.  Section 4.09 requires that the language “Potential short sale” be included in the Private Remarks.  Further, this section requires that all confidential disclosures and confidential information related to short sales must be communicated in the “Non Public Remarks” available only to participants and subscribers.
 
Disclosure in the Public Remarks permitted with seller’s consent
We have had several members express that they felt it a duty to the public to disclose that a property was subject to short sale in the the Public Remarks.  After discussing this with legal counsel, it was decided that members may, but are not obligated to, disclose the existence of a potential short sale in the public remarks provided the seller has consented to the disclosure.
 
Short Sale Listings may remain in Active status until lender approves or accepts an offer or purchase agreement.
We heard from several members concerned about having to place short sale listing under contingent status after the seller accepts the first offer.  If required to place short sale listings in contingent status after the first offer was accepted by the seller, it may be months before an offer is accepted by the lender.  They felt that buyers and their brokers and agents were not interested in pursuing a listing in contingent status.  This issue was discussed at the HIS Board of Directors meeting and the directors agreed that a short sale listing may remain active until the lender accepted or approved an offer or purchase agreement or contract.

MAINTENANCE ALERT!

HIS will be performing hardware migration for one of its SQL servers this Saturday night, April 11th, starting at 10:50 p.m. The work is anticipated to take about 12 hours.  During this 12 hour maintenance window, all REsearch, IDX and public site customers will be running in “Read Only” mode. No new listings, photos, prospects, calendar entries, or other data entry processes will be permitted until the migration work is completed.  It is anticipated that full service will be available by 10:50 a.m. on Sunday, April 12th. 
 
We thank you for your patience and apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.  Should you have any questions, please feel free to contact us.        Mahalo!
 
Normal Office Hours

Monday – Friday:   8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m
 
In the event of emergency ….
you may leave a message in our emergency voice mailbox by calling the main office number and pressing * (star).   Leave your message and our phone system will notify our on-call staff that there is an emergency message.  Call 1-800-628-3121, if calling from the neighbor islands or 599-4224, if calling from Oahu.