Seven legislative days remain after last week’s action at the State House. The Senate operated smoothly on Tuesday but slowed as Democrats filibustered on Thursday until Republicans invoked cloture and ended debate on a number of bills that ranked high on their agenda. The House continues at a normal pace, although cross-chamber sparring resulted in some Senate bills being carried over on the calendar. Highlights from the week include progress for several REALTOR® priorities, House passage of bills creating a shark attack notification system and honoring shark attack victim LuLu Gribbin, and renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. The Senate passed bills designed to protect minors by requiring smartphones and tablets to have filters blocking sexually explicit material activated at purchase and requiring apps to verify users’ ages. Continue reading for more!

A House committee gave a favorable report to a REALTOR®-priority bill last week that would require local governments to report business license schedules to the Alabama Department of Revenue, providing a one-stop-shop for owners to determine how much cumulative license tax they owe. In an effort to ease costs for license taxes charged, SB 174 would also allow taxpayers to appeal business license charges to the Alabama Tax Tribunal in Montgomery.

Another provision of the bill would cut down on mass letters from third party collection firms. SB 174 creates a cause of action against firms for sending collection letters when they knew or should have known the charges are not lawfully due. It also requires that any letter sent to businesses must be accompanied by an official letter from the local government explaining that the collection firm is working on their behalf.

The bill awaits final passage by the House of Representatives. 

Noted in CNN earlier this session as Alabama REALTORS® priorities here, AAR planned to support three real estate license law bills. The first bill, HB 230/ACT 2025-59, passed earlier this session. The second bill, SB 212 and HB 382, are identical measures, and each passed out of their respective committees several weeks ago (read more here). The companion bills continued their progress last Thursday receiving unanimous passage in both chambers of origin – 28-0 in the Senate and 101-0 in the House. Thank you to sponsors Sen. Josh Carnley (R-Enterprise) and Rep. Jamie Kiel (R-Russellville), who guided the legislation to passage. A floor amendment was added to both bills to reflect changes requested by the Alabama Real Estate Commission (AREC).

As amended, SB 212 and HB 382 do the following:

1. Failed Payments to AREC - Bad Checks/Incorrect E-payment Numbers: The bill allows failed payments to be handled administratively rather than requiring a full hearing by AREC. With the extensive use of electronic payments for license fees and other charges, licensees who inadvertently input the wrong account or routing numbers find themselves in violation of current law and subject to a hearing before the full Alabama Real Estate Commission. The bill will keep these administrative oversights from requiring a full hearing. 
2. RECAD/Dual Agency Changes: In line with many other states, the bill changes the definition of a dual agent, limiting it to when one agent represents both sides of a transaction and not when two independent agents in one company represent opposite sides. Real estate agents are predominantly independent contractors, and the change will ensure that each agent owes the full fiduciary duties exclusively to their respective client, rather than the more limited responsibilities of dual agency. The bill also tweaks the definition of “agency agreement” to reflect the designation by the qualifying broker. 
3. Sets Parameters for Co-Brokerage Agreements with Out-of-State Brokers: The amendment added specific requirements and limitations on out-of-state co-brokerage agreements for Alabama transactions, including setting the max number at three transactions per year, with a portfolio of properties equaling one transaction, a $50,000,000 maximum in transaction volume per year, and requiring the Alabama broker to supervise the actions of the out-of-state broker.
4. Reasonable Regulation for Teams: Recent years have seen more widespread use of real estate teams or groups, in which real estate agents work together under a specific name that is a sub-group within a real estate company. The bill sets a basic definition for teams, reasonable rules on advertising, and clarifies broker responsibilities for teams to promote clarity to consumers and ensure professionalism by the team or group. The bill expressly prohibits additional licensing or registration by teams or team members.
5. Use of Branch Offices: Current law has an antiquated prohibition on real estate agents using any branch office to meet clients other than the physical office where their license is held. The bill lifts that prohibition to allow agents to use any office of their brokerage.   
6. Increases the Maximum Fine from $2,500 to $5,000: Current law has set the maximum amount a licensee can be fined at $2,500 per violation. Through the years, the maximum fine has become less of a deterrent for bad conduct and license law violations. The bill increases the maximum fine from $2,500 to $5,000 that can be imposed by the Alabama Real Estate Commission.  

SB 212 and HB 382 now await consideration in committees of the opposite chamber. If passed into law, the measures would take effect in October 2025. 

A third real estate bill, HB 225, was filed earlier this legislative session by Rep. Rolanda Hollis (D- Birmingham) and Debbie Wood (R- Valley) and sponsored by AREC. HB 225 as originally filed, covered a broad range of topics including education and licensure updates, additional registration requirements, fees, and fines. AAR was supportive of many aspects of HB 225 and opposed other aspects of the bill as originally filed. The bill sponsors, AAR, and AREC were able to work through an amended version of HB 225. AAR supports the amended HB 225 and worked to help secure passage of the bill through the House of Representatives last week with a vote of 101-0.

The amended HB 225 makes changes to real estate education and licensure requirements focusing on four broad categories:  

1. Education Updates: The bill updates definitions; increases the fine for license law violations by schools, administrators and instructors from $2,500 to $5,000; inserts accountability measures for pre-license schools if their students fail taking license examinations; codifies continuing education for instructors; codifies a renewal and inactive process for educators and schools; and creates a process for the commission to approve distance education for pre-license and continuing education.
2. Enhanced Licensure Requirements: The bill increases the requirements to obtain a real estate salesperson (i.e. agent), broker, and qualifying broker license. The increased requirements are mainly a higher number of hours necessary to obtain each license, and increasing the years a person must be in the business before being able to fill the supervisory role of qualifying broker. The bill also requires a licensee on inactive status (i.e. not working as a licensee) to retake certain courses if inactive for a long period of time to ensure they remain up-to-date on legal requirements.
3. Operational Clarifications: The bill updates the code in several areas to make it easier for licensees to do business, such as allowing a licensee to meet clients at any office of its company and updating the process for a company to have a temporary qualifying broker when the permanent qualifying broker is unable to perform his or her duties.
4. Streamlines Statutory Language and Processes: Because real estate license laws are extremely confusing and often overlap, the bill updates definitions, deletes redundant language, and moves language between sections to improve readability and flow.

Thank you to Rep. Joe Lovvorn (R- Auburn) and the bill sponsors for helping address the concerns of AAR and ensuring AAR had a voice on important issues affecting our members, their businesses, and the clients they serve. The bill now moves to the Senate and awaits committee consideration. If passed into law HB 225, would take effect in October 2028.

• Shark Attack Notification System – A bill creating a shark attack notification system passed the House last week. Called the Lulu Gribbin Shark Alert System Act after a 16-year-old girl who was attacked while swimming and later pushed for the bill,HB 437 would create a system to send an emergency alert on smart devices in case of a shark attack near shore. The notifications would be limited to Mobile and Baldwin counties and based on geographical proximity to the emergency.
• Juneteenth Holiday – A bill codifying June 19^th as a state holiday passed the House. Declared a holiday by Governor Kay Ivey by executive order for several years, HB 165 would permanently place the holiday into state law. 
• Birmingham Water Works – A new bill was filed in the Senate that reconstitutes the Birmingham Water Works Board. Sponsored by Sen. Dan Roberts (R-Birmingham), SB 330 is in a Senate committee this week and was criticized last week by Sen. Rodger Smitherman (D-Birmingham).

The House and Senate reconvened today at 1 and 2 pm respectively for the 24^th legislative day. The legislature is expected to use two legislative days this week. While new bill filings will continue to ebb away, pressure to pass existing bills ramps up. The Senate has confirmation of appointments remaining, and both budget bills await movement in the opposite chamber, although the package of education budget bills is on a House committee agenda for Wednesday.