The Canadian Real Estate Association ended a 3 1/2-year battle with regulators Sunday by ratifying a consent agreement that the Competition Bureau of Canada says will prohibit CREA's member boards and associations from imposing anticompetitive rules on flat-fee, limited-service brokerages.

The Competition Bureau served CREA with a court order in March 2007, after Canada's equivalent of the National Association of Realtors published a set of rule interpretations that barred the "mere posting" of listings in multiple listing services without the provision of other services.That, and other CREA rules -- such as requirements that a listing Realtor act as an agent for the seller throughout the entire period of a listing agreement, and receive and present all offers and counteroffers to the seller -- have virtually eliminated fee-for-service real estate brokerages in Canada, the Competition Bureau alleged.All rights reserved. [Read the full article]

ZipLogix, a company that specializes in electronic real estate documents, has launched a mobile Web version of its zipForm software.The mobile Web application is available to subscribers of the company's zipForm 6 Professional software for $9.95 a year. ZipForm Mobile syncs with users' online software accounts. The site is optimized to run on iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, Android, and BlackBerry devices.All rights reserved. This content may not be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, in part or in whole, without written permission of Inman News.Use of this content without permission is a violation of federal copyright law.ZipLogix, a company that specializes in electronic real estate documents, has launched a mobile Web version of its zipForm software.The mobile Web application is available to subscribers of the company's zipForm 6 Professional software for $9.95 a year. ZipForm Mobile syncs with users' online software accounts. [Read the full article]

DEAR BENNY: My husband and I have a house entitled in joint tenancy, and I am filing a divorce. I left our house about two months ago. In less than two years my spouse will retire and that will give him time to sell the house.For his convenience, I am planning to have as part of the divorce decree that the house be sold in no later than two years. My spouse can afford to pay the mortgage if he wants to stay through that period of time. We have no kids from our marriage, but I have two grown-up, married kids on their own already.Will that be acceptable to the mortgage lender? Will this be a disadvantage to me? I am sorry if this last question is one that I should direct to a divorce attorney. --C.S.DEAR C.S.: By all means, you have retained legal counsel and the specific advice you need should come from him or her. You have raised two questions: (1) Will the mortgage lender have any problems with your proposal? The short answer is no. [Read the full article]

Continuing the thread of digital tools that help you meet in the analog world, this week let's take a look at Meetup.com. Similar in some ways to the event organizing software Eventbrite, Meetup.com is for, well, organizing a meet-up.Meetup.com focuses on the social nature of groups as it's main organizing feature. Instead of focusing on one-off events, Meetup is designed to help you manage a face-to-face community that will get together more than once.Typically, Meetup groups are organized around a specific topic or cause: software user groups, book clubs, hiking clubs, foreign language groups, and so on. If people are going to spend actual face-to-face time they like to know what the purpose is.All rights reserved. This article may not be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, in part or in whole, without written permission of Inman News. Use of this article without permission is a violation of federalcopyright law. [Read the full article]