DRE Continuing Education Courses

It's Not Easy Being a Top Agent!

To the typical homebuyer, the title "real estate agent" has many meanings: neighborhood tour guide, financial counselor, legal guardian, defect detector, structural specialist, and hazard expert, not to mention friend, confidant, and shrink. Too often, though, when undisclosed hazards are discovered after the sale -- and the unhappy buyer looks for someone to sue -- the title means "insurance company of last resort."

Protecting yourself from nondisclosure liability is a fulltime job in the real estate business. Fortunately, there is DRE-approved continuing education to help you do it.

FANHD is the disclosure industry's leading provider of DRE-approved courses. Our current offerings include the following courses:

CALIFORNIA COURSES

Real Estate Disclosures: Delivering Knowledge and Managing Risk

For the past decade, FANHD has offered this very successful natural hazard disclosure course in California. It grew out of concerns in the real estate community over the state's passage of a law mandating a broad spectrum of seller disclosures.

Brokers and agents must be aware of disclosure obligations and keep up-to-date on new disclosure requirements. As licensees of California you have addition obligations when it comes to disclosing natural hazards that might affect a property. Consumer lawsuits against agents over non-disclosure prompted the state government to increase the mandated natural hazard disclosure obligations of real estate licensees in 1998. This DRE course is designed to satisfy these needs of the real estate professional. (3 hours)

RESPA: The Real Property Hazard for the 21st Century

The Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act -- or "RESPA" -- is a Federal law enacted in 1974 that regulates the actions of lenders, real estate agents, and other service providers in a real estate transaction. It is enforced by HUD and protects consumers from abuses during the residential real estate purchase by requiring lenders and agents to disclose all settlement costs, practices, and relationships. It's complicated. And because RESPA is poorly understood by many real estate agents it's often ignored by them -- increasingly at the peril.

In recent years, the real estate industry has come under HUD's increased scrutiny for RESPA violations. In May 2007 HUD filed the first lawsuit ever that targeted real estate brokers and a hazard disclosure company, over "illigitimate profits" generated by "sham" joint ventures.

Our RESPA course, presented by the legal counsel of First American Financial, educates brokers and agents about this growing threat to affiliated business relationships between real estate services. (2 hours)

ARIZONA COURSES

Arizona Disclosures: Issues and Requirements

In recent years, the Arizona government has enacted numerous laws regulating the disclosure of material facts in a real property transaction. The issues range from aircraft flight zones and sex offenders to drug labs and expansive soils. In 2006 and 2007, the state enacted laws that specify the types of disclosures that must appear in a written third-party disclosure report, adding airport proximity, ground fissures, and environmental sites to the list.

This course clarifies what Arizona's disclosure laws require, what the real estate profession recommends, and what the buyer should discover during the escrow period -- in order that the seller, buyer and their agents are best protected from liability after the sale. (2 hours)

NEVADA COURSES

Risk Reduction Through Property Hazard Disclosure in Nevada

Clark County is one of the fastest-growing metro areas in the nation. Most of the new homebuyers there, and many of the new agents, are California transplants whose expectations about the homebuying process are based on the Golden State's consumer-friendly disclosure environment. This raises the stakes for Nevada home sellers and their agents. In response, the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors has become a national leader in promoting liability risk-reduction by its member agents and brokers.

FANHD's property disclosure course was designed to educate new and veteran agents alike about the principles of seller property disclosure. It covers Nevada's unique natural hazard landscape, the state's disclosure laws and regulations, and the industry's standard of care. On that foundation, the course informs the agent how to minimize professional liability through full disclosure, and what the essential elements of full disclosure include. (2 hours)