Pennsylvania Real Estate Broker Exam — All Questions

Five of the members the Governor appoints to the State Real Estate Commission must be licensed Pennsylvania brokers who, at the time of appointment, have been engaged in the real estate business in this Commonwealth for at least:

• a.Ten years✓
• b.Five years
• c.Three years
• d.Fifteen years

Section 202(a) of RELRA requires that the five broker seats be filled by persons each of whom "shall have been engaged in the real estate business in this Commonwealth for a period of not less than ten years immediately prior to his appointment." The same subsection builds the rest of the board around them: the Commissioner of Professional and Occupational Affairs, the Director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection or a designee, three public members, and one member who has been licensed as a broker or cemetery broker for at least five years and has sold cemetery lots for at least ten. Three years is the salesperson experience a broker candidate needs under section 511(4) before sitting for the examination, not the standard for a Commission seat. Five years is the cemetery member's licensure minimum and also the term of office under section 202(b), and fifteen years appears nowhere in the act.

A Pennsylvania salesperson is found to have violated RELRA. The employing broker's own license may be suspended or revoked for that violation only if the hearing establishes that the broker:

• a.Had received a fee out of the same transaction
• b.Had signed the salesperson's license application
• c.Had actual knowledge of the violation✓
• d.Had failed to attend the Commission's hearing

Section 702(a) is explicit: no violation by a salesperson, associate broker or other employee "shall be grounds for the revocation or suspension of the license of the employer" unless it appears at the hearing "that such employer had actual knowledge of such violation." Section 702(c) supplies the one shortcut the Commission gets, providing that a course of dealing shown to have been followed by the employee is prima facie evidence of the employer's knowledge. Certifying on the application that the broker will actively supervise and train the applicant, which section 522(b) requires, creates the supervisory duty but is not itself knowledge of a later violation. Sharing in the commission does not impute knowledge either, and non-attendance at a hearing is a procedural matter under section 701 rather than a substitute for the actual-knowledge finding.

The Real Estate Recovery Fund's liability on judgments against Pennsylvania licensees is capped at:

• a.$20,000 for any one claim and $50,000 per licensee
• b.$20,000 for any one claim and $100,000 per licensee✓
• c.$50,000 for any one claim and $250,000 per licensee
• d.$50,000 for any one claim and $100,000 per licensee

Section 803(d) states that "the liability of that portion of the fund allocated for the purpose of this act shall not exceed $20,000 for any one claim and shall not exceed $100,000 per licensee." When valid claims against a single licensee exceed the $100,000 ceiling, the same subsection prorates the money among the claimants in the ratio their claims bear to the total, so a large fraud does not simply pay the first person through the door in full. The other figures are not in the statute; Pennsylvania has left these two numbers alone while other states raised theirs. Note also that section 803(b) lets a claimant reach the fund only after a final judgment for fraud, misrepresentation or deceit, after exhausting collection remedies, and on an application filed no more than one year after the proceedings end.

When the Commission pays a claim out of the Real Estate Recovery Fund on a licensee's behalf, that licensee's license:

• a.Is automatically revoked and may not be reinstated for five years
• b.Is unaffected, because the fund exists to absorb the loss
• c.Is placed on probation for the balance of the biennial period
• d.Is automatically suspended until the amount is repaid with 10% interest✓

Section 803(f) provides that the license "shall automatically suspend upon the effective date of the payment" and that no licensee "shall be granted reinstatement until he has repaid in full plus interest at the rate of 10% a year, the amount paid from the Real Estate Recovery Fund." The suspension is therefore tied to repayment rather than to a fixed period, and it is automatic rather than the outcome of a separate disciplinary hearing. Revocation with a five-year bar is a different mechanism, created by section 501(c) and section 35.251 for licensees whose licenses have been revoked. Probation is not the statutory consequence, and the fund is expressly not a licensee's insurance policy: section 803(f)(3) lets the Commission take judgment against the licensee for whatever it paid.