What to Do if Your Real Estate Licence Has Expired

The real estate industry offers lots of amazing opportunities for various types of professionals and business owners. Like most other highly regulated industries, however, you will need a valid licence to offer services in this industry. Acquiring this licence is, however, not an easy task since you will have to take a pre-licensing course, demonstrate good character, and send an application to your state’s licensing board.

Still, the licence you acquire isn’t permanent. After getting it, you will be required to renew it every few years. Failing to do so within the set time means your licence will expire. So, what do you do when this happens? Here’s what you should know.

What Will Happen if Your Real Estate Licence Expires?

After your licence expires, the most immediate effect will be losing the ability to conduct real estate activities such as representing clients, showing properties, negotiating transactions, and others, legally. If you continue performing your duties, you risk suffering fines, penalties, and other stringent disciplinary actions.

In addition to the regulatory consequences, overlooking the importance of renewing your licence will also pose a risk to your clients’ transactions. That’s why it’s crucial to always renew your licence on time. You can make this process easier by taking simplified Real Estate License Renewal courses from reputable professional education providers like RocketCert. That’s because such courses are written and narrated fully by experts.

Inactive Vs. Expired Real Estate Licences

Your licence can become inactive or expire depending on how long you leave it unused.

An inactive licence refers to a licence that is temporarily not in use. However, inactive licences are rather easy to reactivate in just a couple of steps. Typically, your licence will become inactive if you choose to put it on hold for specific reasons, despite having met the renewal requirements.

For instance, you can leave your licence in an ‘inactive’ state if you need to take a break from real estate or are working temporarily in a different field. When inactive, you’re disallowed from engaging in any real estate activities.

In comparison, an expired licence means you failed to meet the regulatory board’s renewal requirements, such as continuing education (CE), application documents, and renewal fees by a specific deadline. Compared to an inactive licence, the process of recovering your expired licence will be more complicated, at times even requiring you to retake the licensing exam.

What Should You Do if Your Licence Is Expired?

As mentioned before, real estate licences expire for various reasons in different states. If your licence has expired, the first thing you want to do is find out your state’s procedure for reinstating a real estate licence. These procedures will vary from one state to the other, so if you have more than one licence under the reciprocal agreement, you may have to undergo different procedures.

In Florida, for instance, failing to renew your licence on time means it will become involuntarily inactive. As a result, you’ll have to undergo one of the following three processes:

• If your licence has been inactive for 12 months or less, you can reactivate it by acquiring a minimum of 14 continuing education hours and paying a predetermined renewal and late fee.
• For a licence that has been inactive for more than 12 months but not more than 24 months, you will have to complete not less than 28 hours of continuing education and then pay all the required reinstatement fees.
• In case your licence has been inactive for more than 24 months, it’s considered expired, which means there’s no option for you to reactivate it. If you want to regain your licence, you’ll have to undergo the licensing process from scratch. Alternatively, you can request a hearing before the Florida Real Estate Commission (FREC).

Renew Your Licence On Time Every Time

From the information in this post, it’s clear that reinstating an expired licence isn’t as easy as you’d think it is. That’s why it’s a good idea to stay on top of the renewal requirements to avoid dealing with such situations.

RocketCert supports your efforts by offering expertly written and fully narrated courses, which makes the process of satisfying the educational requirements much easier. So if you always struggle to attain the minimum CE hours, you should check out rocketcert.com.