“As soon as practical” will be added to Standard of Practice 1-7 of the 道德守则 in January 2020. Standard of Practice 1-7 requires the listing broker to provide written affirmation that an offer was submitted to the seller or landlord, if the cooperating broker who submitted the offer makes a written request for the affirmation.
The addition of “as soon as practical” is intended to make clear that simply providing the written affirmation is not enough if it was not provided in a timely manner—perhaps even after a transaction closed. Since circumstances vary from one transaction to the next, the standard of practice does not include a specific time frame to affirm that the offer was submitted. Should an ethics complaint be filed citing Article 1 based on this standard of practice, a hearing panel would look at the facts to determine whether notice was provided as soon as practical.
Note that “as soon as practical” also appears in Standards of Practice 3-4 (disclosing a dual or variable rate commission arrangement) and 16-12 (disclosing relationship as a representative of sellers/landlords or as subagents of listing brokers).