Highlights From TREC’s November Meeting
The Texas Real Estate Commission met November 8. A video replay of the meeting along with the full agenda and materials are available at TREC’s website. Below are highlights relevant to you.
Contract Updates Get Final Approval
The commission finalized changes that were approved on an emergency basis during their August meeting. As a reminder, these changes related to language in Paragraph 6 notifying parties that if the property is in a public improvement district, the seller must attach the statutory notice. The contracts were also changed to reflect the new addendum in Paragraph 22, Agreement of Parties. Finally, the changes remove the reference to TREC oversight of residential service companies, which are now overseen by the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. All changes previously approved on an emergency basis have been in use and available to Texas REALTORS® since September.
Proposed Changes to Broker Education and Experience Requirements
Based on feedback from the Broker Responsibility Working Group, TREC is considering changing the education and experience requirements to get a broker’s license. The commission has proposed the following broker’s license applicants:
- Applicants must have at least one transaction per year in four of the past five years.
- The experience points required to be earned by applicants is reduced from 3,600 to 360, in accordance with a change in the amount points transactions may be worth.
- A closed purchase or sale for a residential, unimproved residential, or farm & ranch property is worth 30 points, reduced from 300.
- An executed residential lease is worth 5 points per transaction instead of 50, and renewals or extensions no longer qualify.
- Rent collection is now worth 2.5 points per property, down from 25.
- A closed purchase or sale for a commercial property is worth 50 points, reduced from 500.
- An executed lease, renewal, or extension for commercial property is worth 10 points instead of 100.
- Commercial rent collection is 15 points instead of 150 per property.
- Listings and buyer or tenant representation agreements no longer qualify for points, and a brokerage team management or delegated supervisory position is worth 12 points per month instead of 20, with no maximum on the number of points allowed.
Copies of the proposed changes, including how to comment on the proposals, will be posted on the TREC website.
Continuing Education Change
The commission amended the rule that allows license holders to obtain CE credit for a course taken to fulfill a requirement of a professional designation, such as GRI. They removed from the statute the list of designation courses. License holders may still receive CE credit for such courses as long as the providers have approval for the course through the usual course-approval process.
Source: Texas REALTORS®