Montana Real Estate Broker Exam — All Questions

A Montana broker misses the renewal date and does not renew for eight months. Under the general licensing statute, that broker is:

• a.practicing lawfully until the license terminates
• b.practicing on a lapsed but valid license
• c.exempt from discipline once the license expires
• d.practicing without a license if practice continues✓

Montana distinguishes a lapsed license from an expired one. Under 37-1-141(3), MCA a licensee may reactivate a lapsed license within 45 days after the renewal date, and 37-1-141(6)(a) says a licensee who practices with a lapsed license 'is not considered to be practicing without a license.' Past that 45-day window the license is expired, and 37-1-141(6)(b) is explicit: 'A licensee who practices after a license has expired is considered to be practicing without a license.' Eight months out, this broker is well past 45 days, so continuing to practice is unlicensed practice. Nor does expiry buy immunity: 37-1-141(9) keeps the board's disciplinary jurisdiction alive for 2 years after the date the license lapsed. An expired license can be reactivated within 2 years under 37-1-141(4), and one not renewed within 2 years of the most recent renewal date automatically terminates and cannot be reactivated at all.

A distinctive feature of Montana real estate regulation is that it:

• a.Prohibits property management by anyone other than a broker
• b.Separately licenses property managers under Title 37, Chapter 56 MCA✓
• c.Requires every broker to also hold a certified appraiser license
• d.Licenses property managers through the Department of Revenue

Managing rental property for others is its own licensed occupation in Montana, and the chapter moved. Property manager licensure used to sit in Title 37, chapter 51, part 6, now captioned "Licensure of Property Managers (Repealed)" and repealed by Sec. 17, Ch. 482, L. 2023. It now sits in Title 37, chapter 56, where 37-56-103 provides that a person may not practice as a property manager unless actively licensed under Title 37, chapter 1, and that part, and 37-56-102 places the licensing and rulemaking power with the department rather than with the Board of Realty Regulation; the board's power under 37-51-202 runs only to licences issued under chapter 51. A candidate citing chapter 51 for property managers is citing a repealed part. The separate credential does not fence brokers out: 37-56-104(2) says a broker or salesperson licensed under Title 37, chapter 51, may act as a property manager, and a salesperson may not act as one without a supervising broker. That is why describing the state as prohibiting property management by non-brokers has it backwards, and why 37-51-103(1)(i) exempts licensed property managers from the broker licensing provisions instead of forbidding them. Routing the credential through the revenue department confuses a tax agency with the occupational regulator, and appraisal is a separate discipline with its own credential.