Licensing changes ahead

Many of the new regulations are the result of the Real Estate License Act, HB3528, which was passed unanimously by the General Assembly and signed into law by Gov. Bruce Rauner on Aug. 18. While the legislation is technically effective Jan. 1, it won’t be implemented or enforced until IDFPR rules are finalized.

The law addresses several important things from a regulatory standpoint, largely by streamlining the licensing and continuing education process. The continuing education requirements will change with the elimination of the Core A and Core B separations. Instead, the legal and licensing information that brokers cover in the courses will be shared in a single four-hour core curriculum each renewal cycle.

For the continuing education and pre-license providers, this means that they are required to obtain only one license.

“Core A area subjects will include advertising, agency, disclosures, fair housing, leasing agent management and license law,” says Rebecca Thomson, president of the Chicago Association of Realtors and director of agent development for @properties. “These core classes may be taken in the classroom via a live, interactive webinar or through an online distance education platform.”

The content of the single core has not been finalized, but Allison says that the National Association of Realtors and Illinois Realtors will make recommendations in the coming months.

“I intend to have the board take a closer look and think about it in earnest, and they’ll make a recommendation,” Allison says. “Once they’ve made a recommendation, I’ll make tweaks as I see fit and then we’ll publish it. Six months later it will become the actual standard. My hope and goal is that it would be drafted, recommended and approved by me for publication by the end of June 2018 so that it would come into effect by Jan. 1, 2019.”

Thomson says the continuing education changes will give agents more flexibility in how they fulfill their continuing education requirements.

“The current number of required continuing education hours for each two-year renewal period will remain the same — 12 hours for each renewal, at a rate of six hours per year,” Thomson says. “However, courses will be available in two-hour increments, as opposed to three hour-long ones, so brokers have more options and a variety of classes to meet the requirements.”