Massachusetts Real Estate Broker Exam — All Questions

Massachusetts premises contain paint with dangerous levels of lead. When does the owner's duty to abate or contain arise?

• a.When a child under six years of age lives in the premises✓
• b.When the building was put up before nineteen seventy-eight
• c.When any tenant asks the owner in writing for a lead inspection
• d.When the premises are advertised for rent to a family with children

M.G.L. c.111 s.197(a) is triggered by occupancy, not by age of construction: whenever a child under six years of age resides in premises in which paint, plaster, or other accessible structural material contains dangerous levels of lead, the owner shall abate or contain it. The same subsection gives a new owner ninety days after a change of ownership where a child under six will become or continue to be a resident. The pre-1978 date belongs to the federal disclosure and renovation rules and does not set the Massachusetts duty. A tenant's written request does not create the obligation, which runs from the facts on the ground. And advertising is not the trigger; s.151B independently forbids refusing to rent because of the lead law.

A Massachusetts home on a septic system is being sold. When is a Title 5 inspection not required?

• a.Where the buyer agrees in writing to replace the system after the closing
• b.Where the system was installed within the previous fifteen calendar years
• c.Where the transfer is between spouses, siblings, or a parent and a child✓
• d.Where the town holds a betterment lien covering the cost of a new system

M.G.L. c.21A s.13 gives the Department of Environmental Protection the State Environmental Code, of which Title 5 is the sewage part, and then carves out the transfers that need no inspection: between current spouses, between parents and their children, between full siblings, and where the grantor transfers the property into a trust at least one of whose beneficiaries is of the first degree of relationship to him. Those are relationships, not conditions the parties can create. A private promise to replace the system later does not fit, since the exemptions turn on who the parties are. The section names no age of system that excuses inspection. And a betterment lien is a municipal financing device with no bearing on the inspection requirement.

Who inspects a Massachusetts home for smoke and carbon monoxide alarm compliance when it is sold?

• a.The local board of health, under its state sanitary code jurisdiction
• b.The buyer's home inspector, who issues the certificate at the closing
• c.The building commissioner, acting under the state building code alone
• d.The head of the local fire department, who enforces both requirements✓

Both statutes point at the same official. M.G.L. c.148 s.26F requires the seller to equip a residential building with approved smoke detectors upon sale or transfer and puts enforcement in the head of the fire department. M.G.L. c.148 s.26F1/2(c) requires that every residential dwelling be inspected by the head of the fire department for carbon monoxide alarm compliance upon sale or transfer, and subsection (e) again names him as the enforcer. The municipal department that polices housing habitability works from a different chapter altogether and has no role in alarm sign-off. A home inspector works for the buyer and issues no municipal certificate. And while the building code can set stricter alarm rules for new construction, the sale inspection still runs through the fire department.

An owner wants to fill part of a bordering wetland on a Massachusetts lot. What has to come first?

• a.A variance from the local zoning board of appeals and a municipal building permit
• b.A license from the Department of Environmental Protection alone, obtained by mail
• c.A notice of intent to the conservation commission and an order of conditions✓
• d.A vote of town meeting approving the alteration of the wetland resource

M.G.L. c.131 s.40, the Wetlands Protection Act, bars removing, filling, dredging, or altering a bank, riverfront area, wetland, beach, dune, flat, marsh, meadow, or swamp bordering on waters without first filing written notice of intent and 'receiving and complying with an order of conditions,' with all appeal periods elapsed. The notice goes to the conservation commission, with a copy to the Department of Environmental Protection by certified mail, which is why the answer routing it to the Department alone is incomplete rather than merely inconvenient. Zoning relief and a building permit answer a different question, about use and construction. And the statute assigns the decision to the commission, not to town meeting.