Texas Real Estate Broker Exam — All Questions

How is the Texas Real Estate Commission itself made up?

• a.Seven members appointed by the Texas Association of Realtors
• b.Nine licensed brokers elected by Texas license holders every six years
• c.Nine members appointed by the governor: six brokers, three public✓
• d.Five members serving inside the Texas Department of Licensing

Occupations Code § 1101.051(a): "The Texas Real Estate Commission consists of nine members appointed by the governor with the advice and consent of the senate as follows: (1) six members who have been engaged in the brokerage business as licensed brokers as their major occupation for the five years preceding appointment; and (2) three members who represent the public." Nobody is elected to it, and the three public seats exist so that the regulated trade does not hold every vote — an all-broker commission is the arrangement the statute deliberately does not create. A trade association appoints no one either: the Texas Association of Realtors is a private membership body, and TREC is the state agency TRELA charges with licensing. Nor is TREC a program inside the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, which administers other occupational licenses; TREC is created by and answers to Chapter 1101 itself.

The Texas Real Estate Broker-Lawyer Committee, which drafts the promulgated contract forms, consists of:

• a.Nine members, all of them appointed by the Real Estate Commission
• b.Thirteen members: six from TREC, six from the State Bar, one public✓
• c.Thirteen members, each of whom is a licensed Texas attorney
• d.Seven members appointed by the Supreme Court of Texas

Occupations Code § 1101.252(a): "The Texas Real Estate Broker-Lawyer Committee consists of 13 members appointed as follows: (1) six members appointed by the commission; (2) six members of the State Bar of Texas appointed by the president of the state bar; and (3) one public member appointed by the governor." TREC's own page says the same: "It consists of six members appointed by the Commission, six members appointed by the State Bar of Texas, and one public member appointed by the Governor's Office." So the Commission does not fill the committee by itself — it fills fewer than half the seats, which is the point of a body that puts brokers and lawyers in the same room. Nor are all thirteen lawyers: only the six State Bar seats are, and the public member is by design neither a lawyer nor a broker. The Supreme Court of Texas has no appointment at all; the appointing authorities are the commission, the president of the state bar and the governor.

A buyer wins a judgment against a Texas broker for fraud and cannot collect it. Payments from the Real Estate Recovery Trust Account are capped at:

• a.$50,000 for a single transaction and $100,000 for one license holder
• b.$20,000 for a single transaction, with no ceiling per license holder
• c.The whole unpaid judgment, because the account carries no ceiling
• d.$125,000 for a single transaction and $250,000 for one license holder✓

Occupations Code § 1101.610(a): "Payments from the trust account for claims, including attorney's fees, interest, and court costs, arising out of a single transaction may not exceed a total of $125,000, regardless of the number of claimants," and (b) caps payments on judgments against a single license holder at "a total of $250,000 until the license or certificate holder has reimbursed the trust account." TREC's own guidance publishes the same pair of figures. The lower numbers are not the current caps, and no version of the subchapter has ever left the per-license-holder side uncapped. The account also never simply pays a judgment out: it is a fund of last resort reached only after final judgment, execution returned nulla bona and a perfected judgment lien under § 1101.606(a), and § 1101.610(c) makes the court reduce claims proportionately once they exceed these limits. Section 1101.610(e) adds that a business entity and its designated broker count as a single license holder for the $250,000 ceiling.