IAR Broker Legal Hotline

The IAR Broker Legal Hotline is a resource for IAR Brokers and strives to provide a source of legal information that is educational in nature and covers broad issues affecting the profession. Only IAR Brokers will be allowed to ask questions on the legal hotline. If you are not a Broker, IAR recommends that you reach out to your Broker for assistance. If your Broker is not able to answer the question, then the Broker can call or email the IAR Broker Legal Hotline on your behalf.

Although an attorney staffs the IAR Broker Legal Hotline and answers questions about legal topics, there is not an attorney-client relationship formed. The information supplied by an IAR Attorney is not considered legal advice. It is only for general legal education. Members should contact their own private attorney for legal advice.

Please visit theIowa State Bar Association to find a local attorney.

You may ask a question to the IAR Broker Legal Hotline by calling 515-309-9358 or by emailinglegalhotline@iowarealtors.com during the scheduled hotline hours. Our attorney will review your question and respond accordingly. Your question may be used for educational purposes and shared with other members (excluding identifying information) to help provide education for members about lowering the risk to the profession. 

Hours

The IAR Broker Legal Hotline will generally be available for IAR Brokers during the hours posted below, excluding holidays and both IAR and NAR conferences and meetings. Only questions directed to either 515-309-9358 orlegalhotline@iowarealtors.comwill be answered. If you are unable to reach the attorney via phone, please leave a message with your name, contact information, and a brief summary of your legal issue in order to receive a call back. Questions will be answered as timely as practicable, but it may take 24 to 48 hours depending on the attorney’s workload. Although the hotline will generally be open at these hours, other obligations of the legal department may arise where the attorney may not be readily available on the hotline. Therefore, it is highly recommended that you leave a message with necessary details to answer your question or send an email as a follow up.

Immediate assistance on a legal matter that is time sensitive is always a situation where independent legal counsel should be obtained.
 
Monday - Thursday
9 - 11A.M.
1 - 3 P.M.
 
Friday
9 A.M. - Noon

 IAR Broker Hotline Terms of Service

 The Iowa Association of REALTORS® Broker Legal Hotline is a membership service available exclusively to our Brokers. The IAR Broker Legal Hotline was created to give Brokers continuing educational support on broad legal matters affecting the real estate industry and seeks to lower our member’s exposure to risk in the profession. The IAR Broker Legal Hotline is available to answer generalized questions involving principles of law that are relevant to the industry. General questions regarding REALTOR Code of Ethics, Arbitration, MLS Issues, license law questions, among others may be asked.

The Legal Hotline is for IAR Brokers only. The IAR Board of Directors voted in 2022 to exclude questions from non-Brokers. All IAR members who do not meet the criteria below are not permitted to ask questions on the legal hotline. IAR members who are non-Brokers must ask their question to their Brokers first. If the Broker is unable to answer the question, the Broker can reach out to the IAR Broker Legal Hotline for assistance. 

Brokers can be the designated brokers of the office, corporate officers of the real estate brokerage business entity, or REALTORS acting as brokers in an office. Brokers do not include a team leader, team member, a salesperson, or support staff. 

The IAR Broker Legal Hotline provides general information and is for educational use. Although the IAR Broker Legal Hotline is staffed by a licensed attorney, no attorney-client relationships will be formed through use of the hotline. Further, any member who uses the hotline may not offer information from the hotline to their clients or customers, nor may they represent that information obtained from a lawyer staffing the IAR Broker Legal Hotline is authoritative or is legal advice. Because members of the Association will not form an attorney-client relationship with a IAR Broker Legal Hotline attorney, they should always consider seeking out independent legal counsel to receive any legal advice they may need. 

Additionally, there is no confidentiality between a member and the IAR Broker Legal Hotline. Any questions asked should be general and should never include identifying information of the parties in a transaction. Questions asked to a IAR Broker Legal Hotline attorney may be shared with the entire State’s membership, without identifying information of members, to help educate everyone on important topics. If you have any ongoing disputes or legal matters, you should call a private lawyer to ensure you can have a discussion about your issue in confidence. The IAR Broker Legal Hotline attorney will not review any documents, forms, contracts, or any other similar documents that apply to a specific transaction. The only documents that the IAR Broker Legal Hotline attorney will review are standard forms prepared by the Association that members have general questions about.  

Once a member asks a question, any response given by an attorney staffing the IAR Broker Legal Hotline is based solely on the facts recited in the question. Any question involving principles of law may have a very different analysis with even the slightest variation of facts. The IAR Broker Legal Hotline can only provide information based on the facts presented to the hotline. The IAR Broker Legal Hotline does not investigate the facts of a particular situation independently. The response provided by the hotline is intended to provide general educational insight and does not offer any predictions of a result. The Iowa Association of REALTORS and its attorneys assume no actual or implied legal responsibility for any errors in response to questions through this service.  

By using the IAR Broker Legal Hotline, I understand all of this, as explained in the paragraphs above. I fully understand that no attorney-client relationship will be formed between me and the Iowa Association of REALTORS® or its attorneys. I understand that the information I receive from the IAR Broker Legal Hotline is educational in nature and is not legal advice and that I need to independently obtain outside legal counsel if I wish to receive legal advice. I further agree by using this service that neither the Iowa Association of REALTORS®, nor any attorneys that staff its IAR Broker Legal Hotline are responsible for any errors in providing responses to questions.