Real estate: licenses.

Existing law, the Real Estate Law, defines real estate brokers and salespersons and provides for their licensure and regulation, the administration of which is committed to the Real Estate Commissioner. Existing law, as of July 1, 2018, removed the Bureau of Real Estate from the Department of Consumer Affairs and instead made it a department within the Business, Consumer Services, and Housing Agency and renamed the bureau to the Department of Real Estate. This bill would make conforming and nonsubstantive changes. Existing law subjects the powers and duties of the department, under specified provisions of law, to review by the appropriate policy committees of the Legislature, performed as if those provisions were scheduled to be repealed as of January 1, 2022. This bill would extend that date to January 1, 2026. Existing law authorizes a person who has passed the applicable license examination, as provided, to apply for a real estate broker license or real estate salesperson license under the Real Estate Law by submitting an application in writing to the commissioner. Existing law authorizes the commissioner to prescribe the format and content of a license application. This bill would require the commissioner to inquire in every application for licensure under the Real Estate Law if the individual applying for licensure is, or previously was, a member of the Armed Forces of the United States, as defined. The bill would require the commissioner to expedite, and authorize the commissioner to assist, the initial licensure process for an applicant who supplies satisfactory evidence to the department that the applicant has served as an active duty member of the Armed Forces of the United States and was honorably discharged. The bill would also require the commissioner to expedite the licensure process for an applicant who (1) supplies evidence satisfactory to the commissioner that the applicant is married to, or in a domestic partnership or other legal union with, an active duty member of the Armed Forces of the United States who is assigned to a duty station in this state and (2) holds a current license in another state, district, or territory of the United States in the profession or vocation for which the applicant seeks a license from the commissioner. Existing law authorizes the commissioner to suspend, revoke, delay renewal of, or deny the issuance of a license for various acts or failures to act. Those acts include an applicant or licensee having acted or conducted themselves in a manner that would have warranted the denial of their application for a real estate license, or either had a license denied or had a license issued by another agency of this state, another state, or the federal government revoked, surrendered, or suspended for acts that, if done by a real estate licensee, would be grounds for the suspension or revocation of a California real estate license, if the action of denial, revocation, surrender, or suspension by the other agency or entity was taken only after giving the licensee or applicant prescribed due process protections and only upon an express finding of a violation of law by the agency or entity. This bill would add receiving an order of debarment by another agency or entity as a basis for suspension, revocation, delay of renewal, or denial of a license by the commissioner. Existing law requires real estate licensees to comply with continuing education requirements adopted by the commissioner as a prerequisite to the renewal of real estate licenses on and after January 1, 1981. Existing law exempts from those continuing education requirements a real estate licensee who submits proof satisfactory to the commissioner that the licensee has been a real estate licensee in good standing for 30 continuous years in this state and is 70 years of age or older. The bill defines "real estate licensee in good standing" for this purpose to mean one who holds an active license that has not been suspended, revoked, or restricted as a result of disciplinary action. This bill would require additionally for good standing that a licensee has not surrendered a license while under investigation or while subject to a disciplinary action, or received an order of debarment. Existing law, the Real Estate Appraisers' Licensing and Certification Law, creates a Bureau of Real Estate Appraisers within the Department of Consumer Affairs to administer and enforce that law. Existing law subjects the powers and duties of the bureau to review by the appropriate policy committees of the Legislature, performed as if that law were scheduled to be repealed as of January 1, 2022. This bill would extend that date to January 1, 2026. This bill would incorporate additional changes to Section 10151 of the Business and Professions Code proposed by SB 263 to be operative only if this bill and SB 263 are enacted and this bill is enacted last.