by Michele Newbern Gillis
Staff Writer
The deadline to renew your real estate license is drawing near.
License renewals are due by March 31 for all and can be completed online at the Department of Business and Professional Regulation’s website.
The cost to renew is $45, lower than last year.
If this is your first renewal, you will have to have completed the 45-hour post licensing course prior to submitting your renewal forms.
Subsequent renewals require that you complete 14 hours of continuing education credit, including the mandatory three hours of Core Law before submitting your renewal forms.
The 45-hour post licensing course will be held on Feb. 19, 20, 21, 26, 27 and 28 at the Northeast Florida Association of Realtors® main office.
Core Law classes will be offered in February at NEFAR’s main office and at state-licensed schools.
Licenses are good for two years and you have to complete 14 hours of continuing education every two years.
“Some of these hours can be completed at NEFAR or if you go to one of the NAR or FAR conventions you could earn to get credits toward your your 14 hours as well,” said Jeanell Wilson of AllSouth Realty. “For the 14 hours, you can also go several correspondence courses where you could complete your continuing education courses and mail them in, fax them or do them online.”
You must go to a Florida Real Estate Commission-approved school or online site to complete your continuing education credits. (FREC is under DBPR.)
If you don’t renew your license, it becomes automatically inactive.
“You don’t have to send in proof that you took the classes but, if you get audited, then you could probably lose your license because you would have to lie on your affidavit on your renewal forms,” Wilson said. “Don’t send your forms in until you have completed your 14 hours because you could get audited.”
Because she collects her certificates from various places during the two-year period, Wilson said she keeps an envelope handy to store her completed course certificates so if she needs them she has them.
DBPR Secretary Kim Binkley-Seyer wrote each licensee last month to encourage online activity and listed the following steps to reach the proper area:
• Log on to www.myflorida.com.
• Select the “Find an Agency” pulldown menu, which is on
the right side of the screen.
• Select “Bus. & Prof. Reg.”
• Select “DBPR Online Services.”
• Select “Activate My Account.”