The Alabama Real Estate Commission (AREC) held a brief virtual meeting on Thursday, July 23. At the meeting, Director Vaughn Poe provided an update on the review of the Commission by the Alabama Legislature’s Sunset Committee. The Commission also voted on the proposed rule change on continuing education (CE) hours. No hearings were conducted during the meeting.

Before AREC’s meeting on Thursday, the Legislative Sunset Committee met and reviewed AREC’s audit in a virtual meeting. The Sunset Committee heard from multiple agencies including AREC, but will not vote on recommendations until sometime before the start of the 2021 Alabama Legislative Session in February. For your information, the Alabama Legislature’s Sunset Committee reviews audits of certain state agencies, including AREC, on a one- to four-year cycle to ensure compliance with state laws and regulations. Audits of the agencies are conducted by the Alabama Department of Public Examiners. Based on the audit findings, the Sunset Committee can ask the Alabama Legislature to terminate the agency or extend the agency by one to four years, at which time the process starts again.

The Commission voted to approve the proposed administrative rule change on CE hours, which reduces the number of required hours of risk management coursework from six to three. The new rule will go into effect on October 1, 2020. This means that, for the two-year continuing education cycle beginning October 1, licensees will need three hours of risk management and 12 hours of general coursework to fulfill the 15-hour continuing education requirement.