Title and Conveyances
Six items across estates and interests including leaseholds, tenancy, liens, recording systems, boundary issues and foreclosure. This is where Hawaii's law departs furthest from the national course.
Estates, tenancies and leaseholds
HRS 467-1 defines real estate to include leaseholds, so a leasehold sale is licensed activity, and HAR 16-99-11(d) requires a leasehold property advertised for sale to be identified by the word 'leasehold'. The lessee holds a term of years and pays lease rent to the fee owner; the land reverts at the end of the term unless the lease is extended or the leased fee bought. On concurrent ownership, HRS 509-2 lets property be held as tenants by the entirety by spouses or by registered reciprocal beneficiaries, a Hawaii extension of an estate most states confine to married couples, and subsections (b) and (c) preserve the creditor immunity when the property is conveyed into revocable trusts on stated conditions.
Liens and recording
Hawaii does not let a mechanic's lien be created by filing. HRS 507-43(a) requires an application to the circuit court where the property sits, served on the owner and the contracting party, returnable in three to ten days, and 'the lien shall not attach to the property until the court finds probable cause exists and so orders'. The application must be filed within forty-five days of the date of completion, with a further seven days to file the order in the land court office for registered land, and the lien expires three months after the order unless enforcement begins. In the Regular System, HRS 502-83 makes an unrecorded conveyance void against a subsequent purchaser 'in good faith and for a valuable consideration, not having actual notice... whose conveyance is first duly recorded': four elements, which makes Hawaii race-notice.
Boundaries and foreclosure
Adverse possession is narrow here. HRS 669-1(b) allows a good faith claim only to a parcel of five acres or less after twenty years, with good faith defined as a reasonable belief in an interest in title based on inheritance, a written instrument of conveyance or a court judgment, and 669-1(c) allows such a claim only once in twenty years; HRS 657-31.5 applies the same limits defensively. Larger parcels can be claimed only where the period ran before 7 November 1978. On foreclosure, HRS 667-38 bars a deficiency judgment against an owner-occupant after a nonjudicial foreclosure of residential property unless the debt is secured by other collateral, expressly excluding associations, and HRS 667-53 lets residential owners convert a nonjudicial foreclosure into a judicial action.
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State-specific details
State exam facts
- State regulator
- Hawaii Real Estate Commission (DCCA)
- Exam vendor
- PSI
- Scored questions
- 125
- Time limit
- 240 minutes
Who regulates real estate brokers in Hawaii?
The Hawaii Real Estate Commission, within the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs (DCCA), licenses brokers and salespersons. The Commission contracts with PSI to deliver the exams.
What experience do I need before the Hawaii broker exam?
Broker applicants must have been a Hawaii-licensed salesperson associated with a Hawaii-licensed broker for at least three of the five years immediately before applying, and must obtain an approved Broker Experience Certificate before registering for the exam — otherwise the exam score is invalidated.
How is the Hawaii broker exam structured?
The Hawaii broker exam has about 125 questions in a uniform (general) portion and a Hawaii-specific portion, delivered by PSI over 4 hours. Confirm the current passing score for the broker exam with the Commission.
Sources: https://cca.hawaii.gov/reb/real_ed/real_ed-exam_lic/, https://cca.hawaii.gov/reb/16-99-19-2-experience-certificate-application/
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