Ohio Real Estate Broker Exam — All Questions

Which agency issues and regulates Ohio real estate broker licenses?

• a.The Division of Real Estate & Professional Licensing✓
• b.The Ohio Attorney General's Consumer Protection Section
• c.The county auditor where the brokerage is located
• d.The Ohio Association of Realtors

Ohio real estate licenses are issued and regulated by the Division of Real Estate & Professional Licensing within the Department of Commerce. ORC 4735.05(B) directs the superintendent of real estate to "administer this chapter," "issue all orders necessary to implement this chapter," and "investigate complaints concerning the violation of this chapter or the conduct of any licensee," while the five-member Ohio Real Estate Commission adopts canons of ethics, reviews the superintendent's orders on appeal, and decides discipline. The Attorney General's Consumer Protection Section enforces consumer law generally and can act against deceptive practices, but it neither issues nor renews a real estate license. A county auditor is a county fiscal and property-records office with no role in licensing a brokerage. And the Ohio Association of Realtors is a private membership organization that licensees join voluntarily; a trade group has no authority to license anyone or to take a license away.

When may the Division's investigators and auditors review and audit an Ohio licensee's business records?

• a.During normal business hours, as part of the section's inquiries✓
• b.Only after the Ohio Real Estate Commission has voted to open a case
• c.Only when a consumer has filed a signed written complaint against that broker
• d.Only under a subpoena issued by a court of common pleas

ORC 4735.05(B)(4) requires the superintendent to "establish and maintain an investigation and audit section to investigate complaints and conduct inspections, audits, and other inquiries as in the judgment of the superintendent are appropriate to enforce this chapter," and provides that "the investigators or auditors have the right to review and audit the business records of licensees and continuing education course providers during normal business hours." The right therefore runs with the license and needs no prior vote of the Commission, whose statutory role under ORC 4735.03 is to adopt rules, review the superintendent's orders, and decide discipline rather than to authorize inspections. A consumer complaint is one trigger for an inquiry, not a precondition, since the same division lets the superintendent audit on his or her own judgment. And a court subpoena is unnecessary for records the statute already opens to inspection; ORC 4735.05(C)(1) reserves subpoena power for compelling witnesses.

After a hearing examiner reports on a complaint against an Ohio licensee, which sanction may the Ohio Real Estate Commission impose?

• a.A criminal sentence of up to six months in jail for a first offense
• b.A fine of up to twenty-five thousand dollars per violation
• c.A fine capped at two thousand five hundred dollars per violation✓
• d.An order that the licensee repay the buyer's closing costs

ORC 4735.051(I) lists the sanctions available to the Commission: revoke a license, suspend a license for a term the Commission sets, "impose a fine, not exceeding two thousand five hundred dollars per violation," issue a public reprimand, and require additional continuing education that does not count toward the licensee's ordinary requirement. Those fines are credited to the real estate recovery fund. The Commission is an administrative body and cannot impose a jail term; criminal penalties come from a court, and the Commission's own unlicensed-activity remedy under ORC 4735.052(C)(4) is a civil penalty capped at one thousand dollars per violation. Twenty-five thousand dollars appears nowhere in the section; the closest figure is the two-thousand-five-hundred-dollar ceiling on a single advertising citation under ORC 4735.16(C)(1). And the Commission does not order restitution: a consumer's money claim runs through a court judgment and, if it cannot be collected, through the recovery fund under ORC 4735.12.

The Ohio Real Estate Recovery Fund is used to:

• a.Provide down-payment and closing-cost assistance to qualified Ohio first-time buyers
• b.Pay the salaries of Division of Real Estate investigators
• c.Reimburse a consumer with an uncollectible judgment for license-law violations✓
• d.Cover a brokerage's ordinary operating losses and legal fees

ORC 4735.12(B)(1) lets "any person who obtains a final judgment in any court of competent jurisdiction against any broker or salesperson licensed under this chapter, on the grounds of conduct that is in violation of this chapter," apply in the Franklin County court of common pleas for payment out of the fund of the unpaid portion representing the applicant's actual and direct loss. The applicant must have exhausted appeals and diligently pursued the judgment debtors, liability is capped at forty thousand dollars for any one licensee, and under division (E) the licensee's own license is automatically suspended until the fund is repaid with interest. That makes it a last-resort compensation fund, not a housing program: it pays nothing toward a buyer's down payment or closing costs. Nor does it pay the Division's staff; the chapter routes that money into a separate real estate operating fund created by ORC 4735.211. And it never covers a brokerage's own losses or legal fees; punitive damages, attorney's fees, and interest are expressly excluded by division (B)(2).