If you are a resident of California, whether you own the home in which you live or you rent a house or apartment from someone else, there are still laws that pertain to your residence and those laws are designed to protect you. There is a California Department of Real Estate, or CDRE, whose purpose is to promote and safeguard the public interests in real estate by issuing licenses, regulations, training and enforcement.
There is a lot of available information that you can access through the CDRE, which should help you to understand the valuable information that pertains to all things within the real estate realm.
- Verifying a real estate license: If you are working with a person who says that they have a California real estate license and you wish to verify that it is true, you can fill out a form. You just need to enter the person or business’s license or company name, mailing address or license identification number and hit “find.”
- Current (2023) real estate laws (issued January 1, 2023): This page contains pdfs on real estate and subdivided lands law, regulations of the real estate commissioner and the administrative procedure act and pertinent excerpts from the California codes. The page also has a list of the information that is new as of 2023.
- Consumer alerts: This is relevant information that goes all the way back to 2009 from present day (and the information is available in several different languages). There are available pdfs on various topics.
- Current news: The page contains disciplinary actions broken down by month, seasonal real estate bulletins and licensee advisory documents.
- FAQs: This page contains frequently asked questions.
- Steps to becoming licensed: This page lists all of the steps that are needed to become a real estate salesperson or a broker.
- Forms: This page contains clickable forms for anything that you will probably need.
- Document to file a complaint: This page explains the complaint process, explains what you are allowed and not allowed to do, how to file a complaint, how to complete a complaint form and how to submit the form.
- Real estate business resources: This is a list of licensees advisories and alters, mortgage lending activities, information on short sales, industry/licensee resources, a list of state and federal agencies and the California foreclosure consultant registry.
- Complete list of publications: This page contains information on ordering publications, reproduction terms and conditions, eReader devices, consumer publications, licensee/examinee publications and subdivision publications.
- Real estate course provider resources: This page provides a list (clickable form number and course title) for numerous pre-license courses. It also provides a list of continuing education course providers with the form numbers and titles included.
- Examinee list/licensee list data files: This page provides information that can be downloaded for free. The information is updated either daily or weekly, depending the particular form.
Advice from a real estate lawyer
If you are in need of legal advice in the real estate realm, consulting a California real estate lawyer with a great deal of knowledge may make your experience go smoothly. Your lawyer can walk you through the process and can educate you about everything that you could possibly need to know. There are many issues that you either don’t wish to deal with on your own or you simply don’t have the knowledge or experience to do. Real estate can be complicated, which is why the counsel of a knowledgeable real estate lawyer can make a tremendous difference to your experience.