Members of the Kansas Association of Realtors are considering asking lawmakers to amend the state’s current no-call legislation.

The legislation approved last session makes it illegal for companies to call Kansas residents who have placed their names on a state-approved list. The Realtors group wants real estate companies to be exempted from the legislation.

Cheri Drake, a Realtor with TeamOne Real Estate, conducts business with a client over the telephone. Drake and other Realtors said Wednesday that they may ask Kansas lawmakers to amend the no-call legislation that was passed in the 2002 session. They want Realtors to be exempt from the law.

Members of the statewide association met Wednesday in Lawrence to begin discussing which candidates to support in upcoming state elections. Bill Yanek, the association’s director of governmental relations, said real estate agents were concerned the no-call legislation could hinder their ability to serve clients.

The concern stems from the provision that no company would be allowed to call anyone who is on the state’s no-call list unless the company has had a formal “business relationship” with the person during the past three years.

“Not everybody buys a house every year, so we’re a little concerned about being able to communicate with some of our past customers,” Yanek said.

The bigger problem, though, may be when real estate agents are representing individuals looking to buy a house, said Cheri Drake of Lawrence’s TeamOne Real Estate and president of the Lawrence Board of Realtors.

Drake said a potential buyer might ask an agent to find a home in a particular neighborhood. Drake said it was common for real estate agents to make “cold calls” to people to find out whether they are interested in selling their home.

If real estate agents called a person on the no-call list, the agency could be subject to a $10,000 fine.

Drake and other real estate agents said they didn’t think the telephone calls created problems for Kansas residents. She said the reactions she received when calling homeowners about their homes were different than if you were “trying to sell them another credit card or get them to switch their phone service.”

Mike McGrew, of Lawrence’s Coldwell Banker McGrew Real Estate, said there was a simple reason real estate firms don’t need the same type of regulation as standard telemarketers.

“We’re not an out-of-state, telemarketing firm,” McGrew said. “We’re local people and we have to live with the people we are calling, so we’re going to be real careful about how we do that.”

Yanek said the fact real estate agents were licensed by the state also was important to consider. He said if consumers had a concern about a real estate agent, they could complain to the Kansas Real Estate Commission. Yanek said the association may propose the state adopt an exemption similar to one Missouri uses. There, the state exempts businesses that are licensed through a state agency or department.

In Kansas, however, that could allow the banking industry, financial services industry and telephone industry to be exempt from no-call provisions.

Mark Ohlemeier, a spokesman for the Kansas Attorney General’s Office, said state legislators would have to decide whether to rewrite the law to exempt certain industries from the regulations.

“But I think people might have a good point that it could open the door pretty wide,” Ohlemeier said.

Ohlemeier said he did not know whether the Attorney General’s Office had received complaints in the past about real estate firms making unsolicited calls.

“I can say, though, that by and large many, probably the majority, of our complaints are about telemarketing,” Ohlemeier said. “Consumers have routinely said they’re sick of getting unsolicited telephone calls.”