Last week, the Realtors Association of the Palm Beaches (RAPB) filed suit against the Miami Association of Realtors (MIAMI) and the Jupiter-Tequestsa-Hobe Sound Association of Realtors (JTHS), alleging the two Realtor groups, which are currently in the process of merging, misused RAPB’s MLS.
According to the filing, MIAMI and JTHS allegedly created “unauthorized administrative level user accounts” to access the RAPB’s proprietary MLS database without a sharing agreement in place. The suit claims that through the accounts, MIAMI’s executive and technical staff were able to “access, download, export and misappropriate” RAPB’s entire database.
In an interview with the Palm Beach Post, MIAMI CEO Teresa King Kinney spoke out against the suit and its allegations, calling the claims “wrong” and saying that “it’s just another attempt to stop the merger.”
According to RAPB, Kinney is way off base.
“First of all, it is absolutely untrue that this is any attempt whatsoever to get in the way of the merger between Jupiter and Miami,” attorney Joel Rothman, RAPB’s legal representative, told Miami Agent magazine. “The claim that this is our attempt to stop the merger is false.”
Rothman claimed that RAPB’s interest in the merger extends only to matters that involve the association, which means the MLS.
“If JTHS wants to merge with Miami, that’s up to them,” he said. “It’s not something we take any position on.”
Kinney shared a different perspective in an interview with Miami Agent. She claimed that in the lead up to the merger decision, which was initially brought about after JTHS reached out to the Miami association in late May to discuss a possible merger – one which Kinney claimed MIAMI had never anticipated – RAPB made a concerted effort to thwart the union.
“(RAPB) launched a relentless and misleading campaign for over two weeks to try and get the JTHS members to vote no on the merger,” she said, alleging how the association used office visits, emails, phone calls and even a luncheon to push their point. “The whole thing was aimed to get people to vote no.”
This now makes 3 times Miami Teresa King Kinney at the helm has been sued for this type of conduct. When does it ever stop as she appears to be the only common denominator. This attempted grab of 1400 members in North Palm Beach County has now cost 38000 Miami members access to Palm Beach listing and JTHS could never merge absent to the RAPB MLS data. Kinney claims she never could have imagined this even though they were continually warned that this was going to happen? Really? Someone needs to be held accountable at both Miami and JTHS…heads should roll.
No! It has left Palm Beach and Broward sellers without access to 38,000 potential buyers, and without access to the international connections available in Miami. RAPB is at fault by cutting off access to this resource and damaging the income of good, hardworking agents.
Considering that less than 1% of Palm Beach listings are done by Miami agents who shouldn’t even be in Palm Beach in the first place and all of Palm Beach listings are fully available via MLS Advantage your suggestion falls flatly on deaf ears. This article certainly indicates that Miami leadership and management appear as corrupt and unethical as many of their membership conduct themselves when they attempt to do business in Palm Beach.