Staying up to date on the law is vital to your career. First-time homebuyers are new to the real estate game completely, and people selling their homes may not have given real estate a second thought for 20 or 30 years. The ability to discuss new legislation, speak plainly with hesitant consumers, and thoroughly understand how state and local laws affect the industry impacts how you think, act, and speak about real estate, no matter the consumers’ level of experience.

This course covers recent Maryland laws and amendments that passed in the 2020 and 2021 legislative sessions, and pays particular attention to laws that relate to the real estate industry and your everyday real estate practice, ensuring that your knowledge of the law is as up-to-date as possible, and that you’re equipped to identify how new legislation can benefit your clients and customers.

Course Highlights:

• The Maryland Real Estate Commission’s mission, powers, and duties, and authority
• Home Builder Guarantee Fund award limits
• Lien priority
• License reciprocity
• Signage penalties
• Additional fair housing protections in Maryland
• Ethics and professionalism components to continuing education
• Recent laws regarding sink holes and septic inspections
• Tax credits for persons with disabilities, those who engage in historic revitalization, and other consumers
• The Housing Opportunities Made Equal Act
• Amendments to common interest community declarations and governing documents
• Recording of easements and CC&Rs
• Other recent landlord-tenant laws in Maryland

What's a consumer's #1 complaint about real estate licensees?

According to NAR’s recent Legal Scan, respondents frequently indicated "breach of fiduciary duty." In fact, more than 70% of respondents ranked this complaint among their top three issues.

Knowing what to disclose, when to disclose it, what to keep confidential, and all the other requirements of agency relationships is crucial for a successful and legal real estate practice.

This 3-hour course meets Maryland’s Brokerage Relationships & Disclosures core requirement. 

Course Highlights:

• Agency options in Maryland 
• Establishing agency in Maryland
• Real estate teams
• Open houses
• Property inspections
• Dual agency
• Intra-company agency
• Scenarios and examples demonstrating fiduciary duties in action
• Activities to reinforce agency concepts

Ethical real estate professionals who adhere to a high set of standards are the foundation for creating and maintaining confidence and stability in an ever-changing marketplace. Recognizing the need to promote ethical business practices, the Maryland Real Estate Commission maintains and enforces the Maryland Code of Ethics. Because some state licensees also are members of the National Association of REALTORS®, it’s important to additionally be familiar with the NAR Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice.

Aligned to the requirements of the current NAR cycle, this three-hour course offers a full review of Maryland's Code of Ethics, as well as the NAR Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice. In addition, the course includes a review of the enforcement processes and penalties associated with both codes. The course also includes workplace case studies that illustrate the codes in practice and touch on such relevant matters as agency, fiduciary responsibilities, disclosures, and more. The course protects consumers by reminding licensees that ethical practices aren’t just the “right thing to do”—they’re the law.

Course highlights include:

• The rules and obligations outlined in the Maryland Code of Ethics and the NAR Code of Ethics
• The penalties associated with state and NAR ethics violations
• Interpretation and enforcement entities for both codes of ethics
• The differences between mediation and arbitration
• State and federal legislative and regulatory efforts to stop predatory lending and illegal property flipping
• Real-life case studies that illustrate workplace practices and code of ethics violations
• Activities and examples to seal in the new information and frame it in everyday context

*This course was designed by us to meet the REALTOR® Code of Ethics Training Requirement. Please confirm that your local association, who administers the Code of Ethics training, will accept this course.

Whether you’re acting as a broker, branch office manager, or team leader, it’s your duty to provide adequate and reasonable supervision to other licensees and independent contractors doing business on behalf of your brokerage. The consequences for failing to do so can be severe: You could lose your license and/or be required to pay a significant fine.

But what does it mean  to provide adequate and reasonable supervision? In this course, we’ll look at how your supervisory responsibilities apply to the formation of intra-company agency relationships, advertisements, trade names, the proper handling of deposits. 

Course highlights:

• Reasonable and adequate supervision as defined by Maryland law
• Independent contractor supervision in Maryland
• Supervising teams
• Attorneys, advertisements, incentives, and deposits
• Records management

In this course, you’ll learn about the history of housing discrimination and its lasting impact in order to better understand why fair housing laws are necessary. You’ll review the federal laws that provide protection against housing discrimination and what actions are prohibited and required by these laws in the business of real estate. This will include reviewing the personal characteristics—race, color, religion, national origin, sex, familial status, and disability--that federal law protects from discrimination in housing. Besides these federal protections, there are state and local government fair housing laws that protect additional personal characteristics from discrimination in housing and you’ll find out where to get more fair housing information for your clients.

You’ll also learn some best practices for fair housing marketing and some strategies to avoid steering and making assumptions based on stereotypes. You’ll role play some scenarios to practice interrupting any implicit biases so that consumers are treated with equal concern, respect, and fairness. By allowing consumers to choose which communities/neighborhoods they want to live in, you can do your part to uphold fair housing laws and end housing discrimination.

This course was designed to meet the REALTOR® Fair Housing Training Requirement. Please confirm that your local association, who administers the Fair Housing training, will accept this course.

Attacks on real estate professionals have made headlines at an alarmingly more frequent rate in recent years. After an incident where a licensee is harmed, everyone vows to do better, and the topic of safety is pushed to the front of training schedules. Then complacency sets in.

Criminals count on complacency.

This course reviews studies and statistics of safety issues in the real estate industry, and best practices for personal safety.       

Course highlights include:

• Crime statistics and studies that challenge preconceived notions
• Risk factors and vulnerabilities that unique to real estate professionals
• Case studies to illustrate how criminals target their victims
• How to develop a personal warning system and trust your instincts when something feels “off”
• Activities and scenarios to provide real-world context for course content