"[T]he Board has general authority to promulgate rules and regulations affecting real estate brokers and salespersons in order to administer and effectuate the purposes of Article 12-A of the Real Property Law."
A complete video of the meeting is available on youtube.
In summary, the following was discussed:
- The collaboration between the Department of State and the Division of Human Rights in investigating claims of discrimination and enforcing the law. To date, the Department of State has referred 5 complaints to the Division of Human Rights.
- The Department of State's right, even without subpoena, to request documents from a licensee (including to document requests pertaining to documents that are unrelated to the practice of real estate brokerage) and that a licensee's failure to cooperate may result in a license suspension.
- A new licensing requirement of a 1 hour course on licensee safety is being added to curriculum and to make room for such additional hour the property insurance requirement is being reduced from 2 hours to 1 hour.
- The comments period for regulatory changes, [to 175.1 (commingling money), 175.7 (disclosure to clients before accepting money), 176.3 (1 hour license safety course), 177.3 (minimum instruction time of 1 hour rather than 3 hours), 177.7 (computation of time being 50 minutes for an hour requirement) and 175.25 (licensee disclosure of license type on business cards)], has expired and such regulations are expected to be effective in mid January 2017.
- Brokerage firms can utilize cloud storage of their records so long as such cloud technology creates an accurate reproduction of paper records and has technology to permit discovery of any alterations of such records.
- The Board of Real Estate meeting schedule for 2017 is April 12, 2017, September 13, 2017 and December 6, 2017.
The next meeting is expected on April 12, 2017.
