Mississippi: the state portion of the broker examination

This chapter covers Mississippi law only. Agency theory, fair housing, RESPA and TILA, financing, valuation and the arithmetic are in the national portion you have just read. What follows is the 40 scored items that only a Mississippi candidate sits — in the order PSI prints them, and sized to what each area is actually worth.

1. What the Mississippi state portion actually is

Mississippi's examination is delivered by PSI under candidate information bulletin 2348, revision October 1, 2023. The broker paper's state portion is 40 items, 40 points, 1 hour 30 minutes — and it carries the number you most need to know:

The Mississippi state portion is passed at 80% — 32 of the 40 points.

That is higher than the national portion's own standard of 75%, and it is the strictest state cut this project has measured anywhere in the country. Eight wrong answers on the state portion fails you. Most states set 70% or 75%; a candidate carrying over a "seventy-five percent and I'm through" habit from a national course has a margin four questions narrower than he thinks.

Here is the state content outline with the broker item counts, and — because they differ — the salesperson counts alongside:

Agency is the heaviest single area at 8 of 40 — a full fifth of the paper. And the broker weighting is not the salesperson weighting: Property Condition Disclosures rises from 4 items to 6 and Records and Documents from 3 to 4, while Out-of-State Brokers, Trust Accounts and Broker Responsibilities each fall by one. If you are revising from a salesperson book, you are under-weighting disclosure and records by three items — which, at an 80% cut, is most of your margin.

Two published subtopics are out of date, and this chapter says so rather than teaching them. The bulletin was last updated October 1, 2023 and Mississippi law moved in 2024, 2025 and 2026:

• Under Agency, subtopic 6 reads "Buyer may withdraw from Buyer-Broker agreement w 15 days' notice." There is no surviving basis for it. Miss. Code § 73-35-21(7) forbids MREC to promulgate or enforce any rule requiring a licensee to include a unilateral buyer-agency termination provision, and no such requirement appears in the current MREC Rule 4.3.
• Under Property Condition Disclosures, subtopic 3 reads "Licensee responsibility to advise client, ensure completeness." That was inverted by HB 1271 (2024 Regular Session), ch. 423, which added § 89-1-523(2) and § 73-35-21(6) — provisions that bar MREC from disciplining a licensee over the property condition disclosure at all. See § 4 below; it is the most distinctive fact in Mississippi disclosure law.

Two further Records and Documents subtopics — "disposition of records after close of a business" and "electronic records OK" — have no counterpart in the current MREC rules and cannot be sourced to anything. Do not manufacture a rule to fill them.

And the bulletin publishes no statute or rule references at all. There are no citations anywhere in its thirteen pages — only the content outline and a list of approved real estate schools. Every citation in this chapter comes from primary sources: Title 73, chapter 35 of the Mississippi Code as compiled by MREC (rev. July 1, 2026), the enrolled 2024–2026 session laws, the MREC Rules and Regulations (Part 1601, rev. February 21, 2025), and MREC's own forms.

2. Powers and Duties of the Real Estate Commission (4 items, 10%)

The bulletin's subtopics: 1. Hearings, including subpoena power · 2. Purpose and jurisdiction · 3. Violations · 4. Penalties MREC can impose.

Hearings, notice and the standard of proof. MREC may act on its own motion and must act on a verified written complaint (§ 73-35-21(1)). The licensee is entitled to fifteen (15) days' notice of the hearing on the charges filed, a copy of the complaint, and notice of the option of appearing before the Commission or before an administrative hearing officer (§ 73-35-23(1)). Those hearing officers are staff attorneys designated by the Attorney General who must not hold an MREC license, and they sit in the City of Jackson (subsection (7)). Commission staff do not preside — the point of the administrative-hearing option the Legislature required by July 1, 2022 is a decision-maker outside the Commission.

The burden of proof changed in 2025. SB 2423 (2025 Regular Session), ch. 365, effective July 1, 2025, replaced "preponderance of the evidence" with "The clear and convincing standard of proof shall be used to examine factors during all hearings" — and it says it twice, once in § 73-35-23(1) for hearings before the Commission and again in § 73-35-23(7) for hearings before a hearing officer. Any Mississippi study material printed before mid-2025 has this wrong. Note also what substantial evidence is: the deferential test a circuit court uses when it reviews the Commission's decision on appeal under § 73-35-25 — not the burden the Commission carries at the hearing.

Two investigation clocks, also new in 2025. The same act added § 73-35-23(9), running two deadlines from the date written notice of the commencement of an investigation is given to the licensee and the licensee's responsible broker:

• dismissal or issuance of a formal complaint within one hundred twenty (120) days; and
• final dismissal, a final ruling on any formal complaint, or entry of an agreed dispositional order within one (1) year.

The one-year limit bends only for scheduling — an administrative hearing may be set up to sixty days beyond it where hearing officers are not reasonably available — and the subsection says in terms that the limit shall not deprive a licensee of the administrative-hearing option.

A courtesy rule with teeth. § 73-35-23(6): no commissioner, employee, investigator or agent may communicate with a licensee about an investigation before written notice has been delivered to the licensee's responsible broker.

What MREC can do, and what it cannot. It may refuse, suspend or revoke a license (§ 73-35-21); issue subpoenas for the attendance of witnesses and the production of books and papers, with process running to all parts of the state (§ 73-35-23(3)), and have a court enforce a subpoena a witness ignores as it would in a civil case (subsection (4)); bring injunctive proceedings against a violator (subsection (2)); and settle by agreed order before hearing (subsection (8)).

What it cannot do is act as a court. The fines of $500 to $1,000 and jail of up to ninety days for an individual's first violation come from a criminal conviction under § 73-35-31, obtained in court. Damages are likewise a court remedy: § 73-35-31(2) lets an aggrieved person sue for up to four times the compensation the violator received, but in a court of competent jurisdiction. Nothing in the chapter gives the Commission a lien on a licensee's commission.

Appeal. From the Commission or a hearing officer, an appeal goes to circuit court within thirty days of service of notice of the Commission's action, is heard without a jury, and acts as an automatic supersedeas unless the Commission shows by clear and convincing evidence that immediate and irreparable harm will occur (§ 73-35-25).

3. Licensing Requirements and License Maintenance (4 items, 10%)

The bulletin's subtopics: 1. General licensing requirements · 2. Continuing and post-licensing education requirements · 3. E&O insurance · 4. Disqualifying issues · 5. Activities requiring a license (including timeshares, auctions, property management) · 6. Exemptions from licensure · 7. Inactive license · 8. Rules about receiving and sharing commissions.

The resident broker path. § 73-35-7 requires a resident broker applicant to be twenty-one (21) or over, legally domiciled in Mississippi and not an elector in another state; to have held an active salesperson's license for twelve (12) months before applying for the broker's examination; to have completed one hundred twenty (120) hours of real estate courses; to pass the broker's examination; and to clear the § 73-35-10 background investigation, a fingerprint-based check of the state and FBI databases.

There is an alternative the wrong answers usually miss: an applicant who has not held an active salesperson's license for at least thirty-six (36) months must instead complete one hundred fifty (150) classroom hours in courses acceptable for degree credit at a college or university approved by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. And a quirk worth knowing: a broker who qualified on the twelve-month track signs a form under penalty of perjury that he will hire no salespersons for thirty-six months. (For reference, the salesperson tier is eighteen years old and sixty hours — sixty is not a broker figure.) MREC also requires a broker applicant to furnish a letter of reference from his bank and, if currently an active salesperson, from his present responsible broker.

Renewal. Renewal is annual or biennial in the Commission's discretion, with the annual application due no later than December 31 (§ 73-35-17(4)). A licensee who does not pay after two months' written notice of delinquency has the license automatically cancelled — and that notice now goes by email to the addresses the licensee and the responsible broker have on file, a change made by SB 2748 (2026 Regular Session), ch. 350. Renewal inside the grace period costs a 100% penalty.

Continuing education. § 73-35-18(1) requires not less than sixteen (16) clock hours of approved course work for each two-year license renewal, and the Commission may dictate the subject matter of up to eight of the sixteen. Excess hours generally cannot be banked, with one statutory exception: approved hours earned in the final three months of the renewal period, if in excess of the sixteen, may be carried into the next period — no more than six (6). § 73-35-18(2) exempts a licensee who has held a Mississippi broker's or salesperson's license for at least twenty-five (25) years and is older than sixty-five (65) — both conditions, not either. Inactive licensees are not required to take continuing education while inactive but must cumulatively make up what they missed before returning to active status.

Errors and omissions insurance turns on active status, not on rank. § 73-35-16(2) names the persons who must submit proof: any active individual broker, active broker-salesperson or active salesperson. Coverage is optional for a partnership or corporation, and § 73-35-16(3) says in terms that individuals whose licenses are inactive are not required to carry it. It does not turn on whether the licensee touches trust money. § 73-35-16(5) fixes the group policy minimums: a per-claim limit of not less than $100,000, an annual aggregate of not less than $100,000, limits applying per licensee per claim, and maximum deductibles of $2,500 per claim for damages and $1,000 per claim for defense costs. MREC Rule 9.2 supplies the consequence: an active licensee who neither pays the premium nor proves independent coverage within thirty days after the due date goes on inactive status automatically.

Who needs a license. § 73-35-3(1) makes a broker of anyone who, for a fee or expecting one, lists, sells, buys, exchanges, rents, leases, manages or auctions real estate, negotiates any of that, or advertises or holds themselves out as doing it. One (1) act with the expectation of compensation is enough (subsection (3)). "Real estate" includes leaseholds, timesharing and condominiums but excludes oil, gas and mineral interests (subsection (2)). MREC Rule 8.1 requires a license for anyone other than a timeshare developer and its regular employees who sells a timeshare plan in Mississippi.

Who does not. Outside the chapter altogether under § 73-35-3(8)–(9): attorneys at law performing primary or incidental duties as such attorneys; the holder of a duly executed power of attorney authorizing the sale, purchase, leasing or exchange of real estate; a receiver, trustee, administrator, executor or guardian acting under court order or under a deed of trust or will; public officers performing their duties; anyone dealing exclusively in oil and gas leases and mineral rights; and a bona fide owner dealing with its own property through salaried regular employees. Subsections (10) and (11) carve out banks, FHA/VA-approved mortgagees and life insurance companies for their lending activity.

Commissions. Covered under Broker Responsibilities at § 8 below: § 73-35-21(1)(l) forbids a salesperson to accept a commission from anyone except the employing licensed broker, and MREC Rule 3.1(E) states the same rule from the paying side.