New Jersey Real Estate Broker Exam — All Questions

A member of the public asks the New Jersey Real Estate Commission for material from a licensee's file. Which of the following is the Commission barred from releasing?

• a.The record obtained as the result of the licensee's criminal history check✓
• b.The business address the licensee's broker has on record with the Commission
• c.The expiration date of the licensee's current two-year license term
• d.The name of the licensed school that issued the licensee's course certificate

N.J.A.C. 11:5-1.5 opens Commission records to public request but carves out a confidential list at subsection (g), and "[r]ecords obtained as the result of a criminal history check" are item 2 on it, alongside medical-disability records, personal data such as home address and date of birth, and files on investigations that produced no formal discipline. The other three are ordinary licensing facts the Commission publishes precisely so a consumer can check who is licensed and where: the broker's business address of record, the term of the license, and the licensed school that certified the applicant's education. Confidentiality here attaches to the sensitive source material an applicant had to hand over, not to the fact of licensure. Reading the exemption more broadly than it is written would defeat the public-inspection rule it sits inside.

In addition to or instead of probation, suspension or revocation, N.J.S.A. 45:15-17 lets the New Jersey Real Estate Commission impose a monetary penalty of not more than:

• a.$1,000 for a first violation and $5,000 for a subsequent violation
• b.$2,500 for a first violation and $5,000 for a subsequent violation
• c.$5,000 for a first violation and $10,000 for a subsequent violation✓
• d.$10,000 for a first violation and $20,000 for a subsequent violation

The statute authorizes the Commission to place a licensee on probation, suspend, or revoke, and to impose "in addition or as an alternative to such probation, revocation or suspension, a penalty of not more than $5,000 for the first violation, and a penalty of not more than $10,000 for any subsequent violation." Two features of the section make those ceilings bite harder than they look. "Each transaction shall be construed as a separate offense," so a course of conduct across several deals is not one violation. And on a third violation, whether of the same provision or of separate ones, the Commission may deem the licensee a repeat offender and direct that no license henceforth be issued to that person. The other figures are plausible regulatory round numbers, but they are not the ones New Jersey enacted.

The New Jersey Real Estate Commission may enter an order temporarily suspending a license on its own motion, on prima facie evidence, only for a violation of the grounds concerning:

• a.false promises and substantial misrepresentation to a party
• b.failure to account for the money of others, or commingling✓
• c.advertising in a manner that is false, misleading or deceptive
• d.acting for more than one party without the knowledge of all parties

N.J.S.A. 45:15-17.1 is deliberately narrow: the Commission may temporarily suspend on its own motion "upon making a finding that prima facie evidence exists that the licensee has violated subsection d. or subsection o. of R.S.45:15-17" — subsection d. being failure to account for or pay over moneys belonging to others, and subsection o. being commingling and failure to maintain a separate special account. Client money is the one category where the Commission can act before a hearing, because it can disappear while a case is pending. Even then the licensee gets at least 24 hours' notice, and an evidentiary hearing must be held no more than 30 days after the order. Misrepresentation, deceptive advertising and undisclosed dual representation are all genuine grounds for discipline under the same statute, but they run through the ordinary hearing process rather than this emergency route.