Phillip's Blog

What’s in a name?

You may or may not have noticed that we are once again Benchmark Realty. Obviously that means we are no longer affiliated with the Florida organization known as Allison James Estates and Homes. Since I have frequently been a loud proponent of that relationship, it might seem odd to you that all mention of them completely and suddenly disappeared. To address that, I have to lay some background info out here for you to digest.

First of all, the legal entity of this brokerage is now and has always been Benchmark Realty LLC. When we affiliated with Allison James (AJI), we filed an “assumed name” application with the Tennessee Secretary of State’s office to begin doing business as (commonly called a “DBA”) Allison James Estates and Homes. That means the company did not change, only the name by which the public knew us. Now that we have disassociated ourselves from AJI, we have simply “lopped” off the last part of our name and returned to our roots.

The reasons for making this move are numerous and center primarily on their inability to embrace the fact (not the belief, but the fact) that the organization known as Benchmark Realty is now and always has been owned by my wife and I. Further, that as the registered principal broker, I have legally obligated myself to the state authorities in the form of the Tennessee Real Estate Commission (TREC) to be completely, solely and ultimately responsible for the real estate activities of every licensee within my company. In alignment with this huge responsibility, there comes absolute authority over these licensees in the transacting of all real estate activities. If an agent violates a rule or law, it is my responsibility to act, and in doing so I have the absolute authority to enact whatever measures in my sole discretion are deemed appropriate to correct the violation. It all sounds so simple in this explanation, but AJI never understood these concepts.

To make the rest of the long, painful explanation as simple as possible, not only did they violate the agreement between my company and theirs through incompetence, they more importantly have impudently violated the rules of the Tennessee Real Estate Commission on several different issues, thereby putting me in an untenable position. After multiple attempts on my part to correct their behavior, it was painfully obvious that no choice remained but to remove our company from association with them as rapidly as possible. Simply put, failing to act would have meant that we were condoning the breach of Tennessee law, a situation that was absolutely not an option, since it placed our complete existence at risk with the governmental authorities. I could not tolerate this sort of risk for my agents.

With all that said, we are eager to put this sad chapter behind us and move on to bigger and better things – that being to serve our friends and clients with the highest level of professionalism, now and in the future. We look forward to working with you!