Effective January 1, 2015, new legislation (Public Act 106 of 2014) takes effect that has a direct impact on you and your real estate license.

Below you will find some of the highlighted changes and requirements.

CONTINUING EDUCATION:

The overall requirements do not change: Within each 3-year cycle, licensees must still complete at least 18 hours of continuing education courses that involve any subjects that are relevant to the management, operation, and practice of real estate or any other subject that contributes to the professional competence of a licensee. Licensees must complete at least 2 hours of the required 18 hours each year, involving law, rules, and court cases regarding real estate.

• NEW! Licensees must present their pocket card AND driver's license for admittance into any course.
• NEW! Any course that you complete obtaining a professional designation is counted toward the total credits required.
• NEW! Course providers are no longer required to submit the student information to the LARA for verification of attendance; instead, it is now the responsibility of licensees to retain evidence of their completion for at least 4 years afterward and produce this information at the request LARA.

This also means that schools and course providers cannot track how many hours have been completed. This responsibility will lie solely on the licensees and their records. KEEP YOUR CERTIFICATES SOMEWHERE ACCESSIBLE AND SAFE!

Acceptable documentation, a completion certificate, for example, needs to include:

• Course provider name, contact information & signature for verification
• Course title, date and location of course, and the length of course (LARA requires their hours to be only 50 minutes)
• Your name and license number

AUDITS:

NEW! If the department finds, as the result of an audit, that sufficient hours have not been completed, they may allow renewal by completing both of the following:

• Completion of missed hours (those that should have been taken during the 3-year cycle but were not)
• If the period determined by the audit to be deficient is at least 60 days, additional hours of continuing education is required:
  • If the deficiency period is at least 60 days but less than 120, additional 4 hours is required.
  • If the deficiency period is 120 days or more, additional 8 hours is required.

And if these additional hours are required and completed during the following licensing cycle, they do not apply to that licensing cycle's requirements.

HOURS REQUIRED:

The required hours have not changed, but just as a refresher:

18 hours total is required for all licensees, of which at least 2 per year are completed and involve law, rules, and court cases regarding real estate during each 3-year cycle. Our current 3-year cycle runs from November 1, 2012, through October 31, 2015.

Any licensee (broker, associate broker, or salesperson) who receives their license in the second year of the 3-year cycle must complete only 12 hours (2 per year that involves the law, rules, and court cases).

Any licensee (broker, associate broker, or salesperson) who receives their license in the third year of the 3-year cycle must complete only 6 hours (2 of them involving law, rules, court cases).

And as always, any course credit used to meet continuing education requirements does not apply to the real estate broker's license prelicensure education requirements and vice versa.