The Texas Real Estate Commission, which has been wading through a complete rule review at the behest of the Legislature, in the past few months has eliminated or consolidated some 43 rules - resulting in a 30 percent reduction in the number of regs governing licensees.

Come February, however, insiders say the review will take on an even more serious note as commission members examine sections of the law dealing with disclosure, enforcement and discipline.

All Texas agencies are being required to review their rules. Some of agencies have made their revisions in one fell swoop, but the real estate commission has elected to go section by section - a process that is expected to take about three years.

So far, rule reductions and eliminations have focused on getting rid of duplication. Said TREC general counsel Mark Mosley, "We had a high number of rules that defined what statutes say. Upon closer examination, we saw the rules were taken right out of the law. Rather than have the duplication, we're going to have the licensees read the law."

The purpose of the review, says Mosley, is "simple recognition that the world changes, but the rules stay the same. We have rules on the books that at one time were seen as important, but aren't so important any more.

"The Legislature, and we agree, felt that licensees should not have to master two sets of printed documents that were very similar to each other (the laws and the TREC regulations).

"So we are going through and eliminating excess verbiage in some cases, and duplication in others. But there are a few cases where the regulations have been lengthened to better explain what we wanted."

Texas has about 140,000 licensees - the third largest state in terms of sheer number of people under the control of a real estate department (behind California and Florida) - but what happens in Texas takes on additional prominence because of the state's increasingly high profile in national organizations such as the Association of Real Estate License Law Officials.

Coming up in February the commission will begin looking at rules governing broker and sales associate behavior.

"We want to look at what brokers and sales people do," Mosley said. "We need to focus on what is outmoded or not well defined in the regulations. We need to look at enforcement rules. Also, we're going to be looking at things like disclosure of compensation for brokers when some other service provider - such as a relocation company or a mortgage lender is involved. A lot of money is changing hands that create different disclosure requirements."

Mosley also said affinity relationships would be on the agenda in the next few months.

"There have been a lot of changes in the way business is conducted and we need to make sure things are adequately addressed," Mosley said.

Rules set for review are posted on the TREC Web page and comments are solicited before decision are made on how or whether to rewrite the regulations.

Published: December 15, 1999

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