North Dakota: the state portion of the broker examination

This chapter covers North Dakota law only. Agency theory, fair housing, RESPA and TILA, financing, valuation, trust-fund accounting principles and the arithmetic are in the national portion you have just read. What follows is the 40 scored items that only a North Dakota candidate sits — in the order PSI prints them, and sized to what each area is actually worth. Where North Dakota departs from the national rule, this chapter says so and names both rules, because the national portion and the state portion are graded separately and you must hold both answers in your head at once.

1. What the North Dakota state portion actually is

North Dakota's examination is delivered by PSI under candidate information bulletin 4662, published for the North Dakota Real Estate Commission. The copy this chapter is built from was pulled from PSI's live endpoint and carries a PDF creation date of May 5, 2026.

The bulletin's examination summary table, which is the part of the document that does publish numbers, prints this:

Three things to take from that table before anything else.

The state portion is scored one point per item. The bulletin carries a footnote — "National broker exams include questions that are scored up to two points" — and it is attached to the national row only. The state row reads 40 questions, 40 points. There is no scenario item on the state paper worth double. Forty questions, forty points, thirty to pass, ninety minutes. That is 2 minutes 15 seconds per item and a 75 percent standard, and you can miss ten.

The state portion is identical for salespersons and brokers in length, time and pass mark. What differs is content, and only in four places, which we come to below.

The state portion is not the whole exam. You sit 90 national items in 150 minutes and 40 North Dakota items in 90 minutes — 130 items over 240 minutes in total. The two portions are passed or failed independently.

The headline finding: PSI publishes no weights at all for North Dakota

Here is the part of this chapter that no other North Dakota study material will tell you, because it requires reading the bulletin against itself.

PSI publishes NO per-area item counts and NO percentages of any kind for the North Dakota state portion. What it prints is a paragraph of framing, four unnumbered area headings, and a list of lettered subtopics under each. No number appears anywhere in the state block.

This is not a copy that got truncated, and it is not an artifact of pulling text out of a PDF. It was confirmed on two independent documents:

1. PSI's live bulletin 4662, PDF created 2026-05-05; and
2. the North Dakota Real Estate Commission's own hosted copy of the same bulletin, created 2025-09-25.

Both were extracted twice, with different extraction settings, and the two extractions agree with each other. A whole-document comparison of the two copies shows only bullet-glyph whitespace differences and one extra test-site address in NDREC's copy (Grand Forks — University of North Dakota). The state-portion block, from the sentence beginning "The examination content outline for the state portion" through to "SAMPLE QUESTIONS," is byte-identical in both copies: 1,577 characters. The silence is in the source, in two places, nine months apart.

And the same bulletin does print percentages for the national portion. Its national broker outline gives an explicit weight for every area — for instance, "XI. Real Estate Calculations (Sales 7%, Broker 6%)." So the document is perfectly capable of stating a weight, and does so ten times over on the facing content. The absence on the state side is a deliberate property of that outline, not an omission we failed to find.

Where the 7 / 8 / 20 / 5 in this chapter comes from — and whose numbers they are

A study chapter still has to be sized. If we gave each of the four areas a quarter of the page count we would be making a different unstated assumption, and a worse one. So we derived a weighting, and we are telling you exactly how, because you are entitled to discount it if you disagree.

The derivation. The bulletin publishes the 40-item state total, and it publishes a list of lettered subtopics under each of the four area headings. The lettered level is the only level printed uniformly across all four areas — only II.E carries numbered children, and counting those leaves would weight area II by an accident of typography. So we counted letters and allocated the published 40 in proportion:

Largest-remainder rounding resolves 6.667 and 8.333 to 7 and 8.

These four numbers are ours, not PSI's, and they are not published anywhere. Do not repeat them to anyone as the vendor's figures, do not put them on a flashcard as "the official weighting," and do not let a course provider tell you they are official. What is published is the 40-item total, the 90 minutes, the 30-point pass line, the four area names and the lettered subtopics. Everything else on that table is an inference — a defensible one, made in the open, and the sizing of this chapter follows it.

The one thing the derivation makes unambiguous is directional, and it does not depend on the arithmetic being exactly right: area III has twelve printed subtopics against four, five and three in the other areas put together. By any allocation method you choose, area III is roughly half the North Dakota paper. Build your study time like it.

One document defect, and why it changes the count

PSI's area I prints five lettered items:

A. General Powers B. Investigations, Hearings, and Appeals C. Sanctions; License Suspension and D. Revocation, Misdemeanor E. Examination of Records

Read C and D out loud. "Sanctions; License Suspension and" is not a topic; it is half a sentence ending in a conjunction. C and D are one item — "Sanctions; License Suspension and Revocation, Misdemeanor" — broken across two letters by a line-wrap bug in PSI's own document. This was confirmed in both extractions of both copies, so it is not our conversion breaking a line: the defect is in the published file.

The correction matters twice. First, it tells you what area I actually asks about: general powers, investigations and hearings, sanctions as a single subject, and examination of records. Second, it is why the table above counts area I as 4 subtopics rather than 5 — which is what pushes area I's derived share to 17.5 percent rather than 20 percent, and feeds every other number in the column.

The four (BROKER ONLY) subtopics — what you are actually paying for

PSI marks exactly four subtopics (BROKER ONLY). They are the only content on the North Dakota state paper that a salesperson candidate does not sit:

Three of the four sit inside area III, the area that is already half the paper. If you are converting from a North Dakota salesperson license, these four subtopics are your entire delta. They are given disproportionate space below on purpose.

What the bulletin names as the authority — and what it does not

For the state portion the bulletin names exactly one source:

"This portion tests knowledge areas that are required specifically for the North Dakota real estate professional, as described by the current version of the North Dakota Real Estate Commission Real Estate License Law and Rules and Regulations booklet."

No section number. No URL. No edition date. The bulletin's "Examination Study Materials" section lists eleven commercial textbooks and states expressly that they are relevant written study materials for the National Broker Examination — the national portion, not this one. So there is no statute list to check, and no citation in the vendor's document that could be out of date.

That absence cuts two ways, and § 6 below takes it up properly. The short version: the usual trap — "the vendor cites a repealed statute" — cannot arise in North Dakota, because the vendor cites nothing. The corresponding risk is that our citations are the only ones on the table. Every statute and rule number in this chapter was checked against the current text on ndlegis.gov, and § 6 lists, by number, the North Dakota provisions that look authoritative and are dead.

2. Area I — Duties and Powers of the Real Estate Commission (7 items derived, 17.5%)

PSI's subtopics: A. General Powers · B. Investigations, Hearings, and Appeals · C./D. Sanctions; License Suspension and Revocation, Misdemeanor (one item, split by the document defect) · E. Examination of Records.

General powers, and the shape of the Commission

N.D.C.C. § 43-23-01 is one sentence and it is examinable verbatim: "The state real estate commission consists of five members, three of whom must be active real estate brokers, appointed by the governor. The commission shall organize by the election of a chairman."

§ 43-23-02 fills in the mechanics. Each member is appointed by the governor for a term of five years; terms are staggered so that one expires each year; and "A commissioner may not serve more than two consecutive five-year terms." A vacancy is filled by gubernatorial appointment for the unexpired term. And then the operating quorum rule: "A majority of the commission, in a duly assembled meeting, may perform and exercise all of the duties and powers devolving on the commission." Three commissioners in a properly assembled meeting can do anything the Commission can do — including discipline you.

§ 43-23-03 creates the executive director, who furnishes bond, keeps the record of all proceedings, and is custodian of all moneys received for licenses and of all Commission records.

§ 43-23-05 is the license requirement itself: "A person may not act as a real estate broker or real estate salesperson, or advertise or assume to act as a real estate broker or real estate salesperson, without a license issued by the real estate commission. A person is not entitled to collect any fees, compensation, or commission as a real estate broker or real estate salesperson without having first complied with the provisions of this chapter."

§ 43-23-18 gives the Commission a civil enforcement tool that does not depend on the licensee having a license to take away. Where a person "has engaged in any act or practice that constitutes or will constitute a violation of this chapter," the Commission may sue in the district court of the county where the person resides or where the practice occurred for an injunction, and "The commission is not required to give any bond for commencing this action." The court may enjoin the practice and "make any order necessary to conserve, protect, and disburse any funds involved." That last clause is how consumer money gets frozen while a case is pending.

Two express limits on the Commission's powers, and both are tested as traps. Under N.D. Admin. Code § 70-02-01-17 the Commission is not authorized to hear disputes over fees or commissions between licensees. Under § 70-02-01-18 it "neither recommends nor recognizes any agreement to fix or impose uniform rates of commission" on any transaction. So the regulator neither sets your fee nor arbitrates your share of somebody else's. If a question offers you a Commission that settles a co-op split, it is wrong on the face of it.

Where it bites. Two brokers fall out over a referral fee on a closed deal. One files a complaint. The Commission has no jurisdiction over the money and will tell them both to go to district court — but if the complaint also alleges that one of them paid part of the fee to an unlicensed person, that part is squarely within § 43-23-11.1(1)(l), and the file opens. The Commission does not care who gets the money; it cares whether an unlicensed person got any.

Investigations, hearings and appeals

§ 43-23-11.1(1) separates power from duty in a single clause, and the distinction is the most reliably tested sentence in area I:

"The commission upon its own motion may investigate, and upon the verified complaint in writing of any person, shall investigate the activities of any licensee or any person that assumes to act in such capacity within the state…"

"May" on its own motion. "Shall" on a verified written complaint. A signed, sworn complaint takes the discretion away.

N.D. Admin. Code § 70-02-01-16 supplies the machinery, and it is a clean set of deadlines:

• The complaint. In writing, on forms furnished by the Commission, verified, naming complainant and respondent, and stating the facts alleged with times, places, and the persons involved.
• The answer: twenty days. The licensee "must, within twenty days from receipt of complaint, file the licensee's answer on forms furnished by the commission," in affidavit form, properly certified, responding factually to the allegations.
• No violation → dismissal without a formal hearing, with written notice to both sides.
• Possible discipline → formal hearing, on at least twenty days' notice, served with a copy of the complaint.

§ 43-23-11.1(3) applies N.D.C.C. ch. 28-32, the Administrative Agencies Practice Act, to every proceeding for suspension, revocation, fine, costs, required course attendance or reprimand. That is also your route to judicial review: the appeal is a chapter 28-32 appeal, not a fresh trial.

There is a separate track for applicants, and it has its own clock. Under § 43-23-11.1(2), if the Commission declines or fails to approve an application, it must notify the applicant immediately; the applicant then has twenty days from receipt of the notice to request a hearing; and the Commission must fix that hearing within sixty days of receiving the request, on twenty days' notice. Miss the twenty-day request window and there is nothing to appeal.

The trap. Candidates reach for "the Commission investigates when it thinks something is wrong" — true, but it is the permissive half. The mandatory half needs verified and in writing. An anonymous tip, a phone call, or a newspaper story triggers only the discretionary power. Equally, a complaint does not need two complainants, a threshold volume of business, or a court order first.

Sanctions; license suspension and revocation; misdemeanor

(This is PSI's items C and D read as the single subject they are.)

The grounds. § 43-23-11.1(1) lists twenty-two lettered grounds, and they are the spine of the whole state paper. In the statute's own order, the ones that recur: a material false statement in an application (a); substantial and willful misrepresentation injurious to a party (b); a false promise that induces a party to their injury (c); acting for more than one party without the knowledge and consent of all (d); failing to account for or remit others' money within a reasonable time, commingling, or failing to keep others' funds in an escrow or trust account (e); conviction of a felony, or of a misdemeanor involving theft, forgery, embezzlement, false pretenses, bribery, larceny, extortion or conspiracy to defraud (f); secret or undisclosed compensation (g); failing or refusing on demand to produce a document, book or record concerning a transaction under investigation (h); offering property without the owner's knowledge and consent or on unauthorized terms (i); refusing to show, sell, lease or rent because of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, age, physical or mental disability, or status with respect to marriage or public assistance (j); refusing on demand to furnish copies to a person whose signature is on the document (k); paying compensation to an unlicensed person (l); failing to disclose the licensee's intention or true position when buying or optioning a listed property (m); omitting a fixed expiration date from a written listing, and failing to leave a copy with the principal (n); a broker failing to deliver a complete detailed closing statement and retain true copies (o); violating any provision of the chapter or any rule (p); a salesperson accepting compensation from anyone but the employing broker (q); a broker allowing an unlicensed salesperson to act in the broker's name (r); the twenty-four-hour trust-money rule on both salesperson and broker (s); failing to reduce an offer to writing on request, or failing to submit all offers received before written acceptance known to the broker (t); any other conduct constituting dishonesty or fraudulent conduct, whether or not it arose in licensed practice (u); and, at (v), conduct below the generally accepted standard of expertise, care or professional ability — for which the discipline is limited to a letter of reprimand.

Note (u) and (v) together. (u) reaches dishonesty in your private life: "whether arising within or without the pursuit of that person's licensed privilege." (v) reaches mere incompetence, but caps the punishment at a reprimand. A question that pairs sloppy-but-honest work with a revocation is wrong; a question that pairs off-duty fraud with "outside the Commission's reach" is also wrong.

The sanctions. § 43-23-11.1(1) lets the Commission "suspend or revoke a license, impose a monetary fine and actual costs incurred by the commission in the investigation and prosecution of the complaint, require course attendance, or issue a letter of reprimand, or any combination thereof."