7.5-hour courses

Real Estate Purchase and Sale Agreements covers pitfalls frequently encountered by licensees in completing and handling residential purchase and sale agreements. Topics include: purposes of purchase and sale agreements, terms and conditions, statute of frauds, community property, earnest money, handling offers and counteroffers, completion of forms, and common contingencies.

Real Estate Brokerage Relationships, Rights and Responsibilities covers the law of real estate agency and more: creation of brokerage relationships, including sample forms; duties of licensees generally, including disclosure obligations; additional duties of seller’s agents, buyer’s agents and dual agents, including the duties of loyalty and confidentiality; and commission claims.

Disclosure Requirements in Real Estate Transactions is a compilation of the disclosures required by law in various types of real estate transactions. We have come a long way since the days of caveat emptor (“let the buyer beware”). The disclosures required in real estate transactions today come from different sources and were enacted at different times. Until now, there was no single source to consult for required disclosures. This course synthesizes the disclosure requirements in a practical and meaningful format, including a helpful matrix of the disclosures required for different types of properties.

One Size Doesn’t Fit All: Contract Drafting for Residential Real Estate Professionals is an advanced course on contract drafting. There's much more to completing purchase and sales agreements than "filling in the blanks." Real estate licensees are admonished time and again not to engage in the practice of law; consequently, licensees typically are not trained in contract drafting and are left to their own devices — often with disastrous results! Printed forms are great, but they are “one size fits all” and not all transactions are the same size. This practical course covers drafting tips, rules of contract interpretation, avoiding ambiguity and drafting limitations on licensees.

Always Stop for Red Flags Waving will help licensees identify and handle "red flags" in real estate transactions. Students will learn how to comply with their legal duties under the agency and licensing laws; utilize disclosures and contingencies to reduce risks; recognize defects and discrepancies; identify common sources to be alert for red flags; handle red flags through a simple, yet effective, three-step process; find information to address red flags; and spot red flags through real life examples.

Legal Aspects of New Construction: From the Ground Up covers the legal aspects of selling vacant land, lots and new houses with emphasis on correct completion of purchase and sale agreements and law affecting new residential construction. Students will be able to: recognize pitfalls in deed release and subordination clauses, prepare accurate and tighter contingencies, determine whether and land development act applies, and comply with subdivision enabling act.

3 to 4-hour courses

From Wild, Wild West to World Wide Web reviews the impact of technology on real estate brokerage law, including do-not-call rules, internet advertising, privacy, personality rights, virtual office websites, electronic signatures, domain names and mobile phones.

Merlin’s Secret Antidotes to Solicitors and other Sorcerers reveals concoctions and antidotes for evil spells cast upon real estate agents by wicked solicitors – misrepresentation, fraudulent concealment, negligence, breach of loyalty, breach of confidence, unauthorized practice of law, and failure to present offers.

Why I Sing the Blues with B.B. Ting is a dose of preventative medicine covering things most agents hate — doing the dreaded paperwork, surviving a disciplinary investigation, avoiding chances not worth taking, keeping current on legal issues, and avoiding potential plaintiffs!

Oscar: Outrageously Sloppy Contracts Agent Right takes a light-hearted, but serious, look at real life examples of drafting nightmares. This short-course on contracts covers common drafting errors and how to avoid them.

Suspicious Minds: Be a Hound Dog and Avoid the Heartbreak Hotel is a short course in recognizing and handling red flags in real estate transactions. This course reviews licensees’ duties when put on notice of potential defects or discrepancies, techniques to shift risks, and steps to handle red flags.

Practical Aphorisms for Avoiding Attorneys and Other Horrors is a short course in practice pointers to reduce risk. Students will learn what gets an attorney’s attention, learn how to create the right relationship under the circumstances, review their duty of loyalty and discuss common conflicts of interest that agents face, learn the importance of documenting the transaction, learn when and how to use standard forms, and learn techniques to shift risks through disclosures and contingencies.

Course Descriptions

“Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.”

 

Oscar Wilde