Membership in a verified body.

Who may join.

The Alliance is open to natural persons engaged in the profession of real estate. The principal categories of membership include:

• Agents and brokers. Licensed real estate salespersons and brokers in good standing in their jurisdiction.
• Attorneys. Licensed real estate attorneys who participate additionally in the Alliance's contract authorship system, as described under For Attorneys.
• Allied professionals. Appraisers, inspectors, title officers, escrow agents, mortgage professionals, stagers, photographers, contractors, and other practitioners whose services are engaged in the course of real estate transactions.

All members are admitted on the same terms. There are no tiers of membership. Every member pays the same annual dues, enjoys the same voting rights on matters properly before the membership, and appears in the Alliance's verified roster on identical footing. Category differences are recorded for the purpose of professional classification, not for the purpose of privilege.

Verification.

Admission to the Alliance requires verification. The verification procedure is administered by AOREP under its know-your-customer program and consists of:

• Confirmation of identity through documentary evidence
• Confirmation of applicable professional licensure, where licensure is required by the profession and jurisdiction, including direct verification against the regulatory authority of record
• Review of disciplinary history, where available through licensing authorities
• Agreement to the Alliance's code of conduct and to the founding principles set forth in the Governance Charter

Verification is conducted once at admission and is renewed on a periodic basis thereafter. A member whose licensure has lapsed, whose standing with the regulatory authority has changed, or whose admitting representations are found to have been materially incorrect is subject to review by the Alliance under its disciplinary procedures.

The Reputation Ledger.

Every Alliance member's professional standing is recorded in the Reputation Ledger — a record of voted reputation contributed by the property owners and consumers whom the member has served in Alliance transactions. The ledger is administered by AOREP and is visible to consumers selecting professionals within the network.

Scoring is conducted upon transaction completion. Each transaction yields one score from each served party, recorded on a uniform scale. Written commentary is permitted and is published as submitted, subject to the Alliance's moderation policy governing defamatory, off-topic, or procedurally invalid content. Members are permitted to append a response to any commentary recorded against them; the response is displayed beneath the original.

The ledger maintains a rolling window of reputational currency, such that a member's current score reflects recent practice rather than history accumulated over a career. Scores beyond the window are retained in the archive but do not contribute to the active display.

The purpose of the Reputation Ledger is to place the authority for professional standing where it properly belongs: with the clients served, not with the platform, not with the Alliance, not with advertising. Quality floats upward because those it has served say so.

Compensation within the Alliance.

Members compete on price and reputation for the services they render. Compensation is flat-fee, hourly, or daily — as the profession and the transaction warrant — and is arranged directly between the serving professional and the client. The Alliance does not set fees. The Alliance does not mediate the fee relationship. The Alliance merely maintains the framework within which fees are disclosed openly and paid for services rendered, rather than extracted as a percentage of the price of the property.

This is the first founding principle, and its practical implication for a member is straightforward: one prices one's services as one judges appropriate, competes for work on that basis, and performs the work for the agreed sum. Nothing about the member's relationship with the Alliance alters this.