A look at recently enacted legislation affecting real estate. Unless otherwise noted, all legislation will take effect in January 2007.

Changes in continuing education requirements for real estate brokers and agents

Amended by AB 223:
Calif. Business and Professions Code §10170.5

Operative July 1, 2007, a three-hour course in risk management will become part of the 45 hours of continuing education necessary for all real estate brokers and non-first-time sales agents to renew a license that expires on or after July 1, 2007. The course is designed to help licensees avoid any errors and/or omissions in the practice of real estate related activities.

Editor’s note — The 3-hour risk management course becomes part of and will not increase the required 45 hours of continuing education needed to renew.

On the subsequent renewal of a broker or sales agent license which expires on or after July 1, 2011, the licensee will need an enlarged 8 hours of survey (the condensed version of a 15-hour agency, fair housing, trust funds, ethics and risk management [AFTER] course), unless the licensee has never before renewed using the three-hour version of the risk management course.

Editor’s note — The sponsors of this bill failed to amend Calif. Business and Professions Code §10153.4 which deals with the education requirements for sales agents renewing their licenses for the first time. The current code requires sales agents to take 12 hours of ethics, agency, fair housing and trust funds (EAFT) to renew their licenses for the first time. Following the logic of the newly amended code regarding brokers and non-first-time sales agents, sales agents renewing a license for the first time which expires on or after July 1, 2007 should have to take the three-hour risk management course, upping the 12-hour EAFT requirement to the 15-hour AFTER requirement.

The Department of Real Estate is aware of this omission on the part of the sponsors and is working to rectify this problem by amending Bus & P C §10153.4 to add the 3 hours of risk management as a requirement for first-time sales agents renewing a license that expires on or after July 1, 2007.