8. Duty to supervise of the agency and its executive officer

The holder of an agency licence and the agency’s executive officer are responsible for the discipline of licensees who represent them and for ensuring that they act in accordance with the law. Therefore, they must ensure that the representations, solicitations, promotions and advertisements of the agency and the brokers acting on its behalf are compliant. They are required to:

• Analyze the practices and activites to identify those that may be non-compliant;
• Establish clear guidelines and standards to avoid non-compliant representations, solicitations, promotions and advertisements. These guidelines and standards must be reassessed frequently;
• Ensure that practices and activities comply with established guidelines and standards and that no advertising will harm the image of the agency or the profession.

The holder of an agency licence and the agency’s executive officer must develop, implement and enforce policies and procedures regarding representations, solicitations, promotions and advertisements. In addition, they must implement internal control mechanisms to ensure that the agency's brokers comply with these policies and procedures. This can, for example, take the form of (random or risk-based) reviews on various social networks, newspapers, brokers' personal websites, etc.

The policies and procedures must include the following components:

• A description of ads that are permitted by brokers authorized to act for the agency and examples of acceptable and unacceptable advertisements to make their understanding easier;
• A validation process, without limitation, for the following ads:
  • Team ads: They must not be confusing as to the team name or team members;
  • Joint advertising with one or more persons who are not OACIQ licensees: They must not lead others to believe that the unlicensed individuals identified in the ad may engage in real estate brokerage activities.
  • Promotional advertising:
    • Contests, draws, remuneration reductions and other benefits:
      • Clarification regarding who is offering the promotion (the agency or the broker);
      • The applicable conditions and their availability;
      • The duration or deadlines to take advantage of it or to participate;
      • Obtaining a permit from the Régie des alcools, des courses et des jeux, if applicable.
  • Performance and sale guarantee;
  • Comparative advertising and any ad designed to promote the performance of the banner, agency or broker: The data used to demonstrate the accuracy of the information and the inclusion of data sources in the ad.