The Alabama Real Estate Commission (AREC) held its monthly meeting in Montgomery on May 23. New Alabama real estate license numbers have continued to rise this year, with AREC receiving new license applications at a rate of 9.64 applications per day in April. AREC continues to audit brokerages that have not been audited in the last several years, and it performed 10 company audits in April. Read on to learn more about this month’s meeting, including best practices from this month’s cases.

As you probably already know, this is a license renewal year. As you plan for any CE credits that you still need to complete, you should plan to earn those CE credits as early as possible. Under Alabama real estate license law, CE schools have up to 2 weeks after a CE course is completed to submit the licensee’s information to AREC. So, if a licensee completes a CE course within 2 weeks of the license renewal deadline, there is a chance that AREC might not receive their credit until after the renewal deadline. In the past, if a licensee completed their CE before the renewal deadline, then their license remained active, even if AREC did not receive the CE credit until after the deadline. However, that policy is changing this year. Moving forward, if AREC does not receive a licensee’s CE credit before the license renewal deadline, their license will be inactivated, and the licensee will have to pay a $25 fee to have their license re-activated upon AREC’s receipt of the CE credit. 

One of the formal complaints heard this month involved a licensee who first failed to notify the Commission that she had been arrested, and later further failed to notify the Commission that she was convicted of the crime that she was arrested for. AREC accused her of two counts of failure to notify the Commission, and she was found guilty of both. A fine was assessed against her for both counts, but the fine for the second violation was twice as much as the fine for the first violation. The Commission explained that any violation of license law is an issue, but continued violations of license law are considered especially problematic and will be punished more severely. The Commission noted that the second failure to notify in this case, where the licensee had actually been convicted of a crime, was particularly troublesome.

Another issue this month involved a licensee who sought the advice and counsel of a broker who was not her broker. Unfortunately, that broker provided the licensee with bad information, which the licensee relied on, resulting in a violation of license law. The Commissioners admonished the licensee for not having gone to her own broker for advice, as that is the very reason that Alabama license law requires qualifying brokers. When faced with questions about what Alabama license law requires, you should turn to your qualifying broker, AREC, or the Alabama Association of REALTORS® Legal Line.