Temecula-based real estate investor Richard Greenwood has seen every shenanigan out there: Agents trying to get unqualified buyers into inappropriate government programs; companies that demand thousands of dollars to help get mortgages restructured and then don't help; and short-sellers trapped by unexpected tax liability.

He believes that most of these problems are the result of advice from inept or unethical real estate professionals.

"In the end, the net result to a consumer, whether it's fraud or incompetence, is oftentimes indistinguishable," Greenwood said. "A professional makes a mistake; the consumer pays."

To help the public separate the good real estate apples from the bad, Greenwood and 29 other real estate professionals have will spend this weekend getting trained as part of a new ethics-certification program run by the nonprofit USA Homeowners Education Learning Program.

The company hopes to produce a cadre of trustworthy real estate service providers by training them in the niceties of real estate law and ethics. After the training, attendees will be certified by USA HELP as ethical, but they will also be subject to the organization's oversight ---- and to losing their certification.

The certification is the brain child of Chris Sorensen, a longtime real estate agent and mortgage banker who decided to ditch the business last year and start USA HELP. With funding from Riverside County, Sorensen has spent the last 11 months giving seminars to concerned homebuyers and sellers on the intricacies of foreclosures, short sales, and the welter of new regulation swirling through the industry.

After most sessions, participants approached Sorensen hoping he would recommend a good real estate agent, or a good mortgage broker, that they could trust. But regulations forbid nonprofit employees from making that kind of recommendation.

"People are desperate for professionals they can trust," Sorensen said.

Once professionals take his class, Sorensen will put them on a list of HELP certified specialists. He'll direct consumers to the list, confident that they'll get an upstanding professional to work with.

"Our focus is on ethics and fiduciary responsibility first, and then knowledge of the current market conditions comes second," he said.

The $300 course begins this weekend with a two-day seminar. Attendees will hear from the attorney for the Southwest Riverside Country Association of Realtors, and he will be followed with additional lectures on the law and ethics.

Professionals who want to remain on the list after the initiation must keep up with continuing education requirements in the form of monthly hour-long web seminars, and they must be willing to subject themselves to USA HELP's self-policing system.

If a consumer complains to the organization about a member on their list, they'll investigate.

Board members, who count Riverside Attorney Rod Pacheco among their number, may be asked to sit on a panel along with volunteers to investigate allegations. Offenders may be punished with suspension or eviction from the list, or, if the violation is egregious enough, USA HELP will file an official complaint to the appropriate regulating authority.

Temecula real estate agent Mindy Zink thinks the oversight function is crucial to augment the self-policing that professional organizations are supposed to do. She sits on the association's grievance board.

"We have no new cases to review!" Zink said. "But I run into stuff all the time ---- stories that people tell me, that I'm not a party to the situation; I know there's problems. We need what Chris is doing."

Riverside County Supervisor John Tavaglione championed HELP last year before the board, and he strongly supports the new program.

"Certification of people in the residential real estate industry is an excellent way to provide buyers and sellers with the knowledge that the people they are working with have only their clients' best interests at heart. It became clear during the last boom that this was not always the case," he said in an e-mailed statement.

Sorensen hopes that if the program is successful, he can expand to other counties and states.

"This is my passion now," he said. "I think people need this nationwide."

Call staff writer Eric Wolff at 760-740-5412.