2020 PENALTIES FOR NOT TAKING AN ANNUAL ITERATION OF THE ANNUAL CORE COURSE

Since the inception of the Annual Core Course requirement in January of 2017, a transition period of three years was necessary to allow licensees to get used to the requirement of having to take an annual Core Course. During that 3-year phase, someone who missed an “annual iteration” (issued by calendar year) of the core course was given opportunities to take “makeups” of a particular year’s issued core course based upon Core Course instructors’ willingness to offer those makeups. The makeups were basically market-driven. Through the middle of 2019, there was one instructor offering “makeups” for the 2017 core course year. Through November of 2019, there are still 2018 core course makeups available. Core Courses are issued to be taken in the calendar year it was issued.

Therefore, licensees should be cautious that the availability of annual core course “makeups” are solely dependent on the ability of core course instructors and their sponsors/schools to schedule and offer them.  Students should know that an instructor’s scheduling of any calendar year iteration of the core course cannot be scheduled “on-demand” or “one-on one.”There is a minimum number of students required for a core course to be scheduled. In short, the scheduling of any core course make up is at the sole discretion of the instructor/sponsor.

If a makeup is not available, then the licensee will be subject to the Penalty as stated in the Rules of the Real Estate Commission which in lieu of the annual core course that was missed, must be fulfilled as a condition of renewal. The effective date of this penalty clause is 1/1/2020.

Penalty: Beginning January 1, 2020, there will be a renewal penalty for missing any year’s core course within the licensee’s three-year cycle. The penalty will be to take the 30 classroom hour Broker Basics course for 0 CEUs.

The two most common causes of licensees missing a core course are; 1. Waiting until the last minute to find an available course, and, 2. Simply not knowing the Rules of the Real Estate Commission. Inactive licensees have the same requirements and are expected to fulfill the annual core course requirement.

The PENALTY applies only when the student cannot find a "makeup" offering for the particular calendar year iteration of the core course that they missed.

Source: "NMREC:  2020 Core Course Planning Guide"