The Commission met on August 7^th for its regular quarterly meeting.  Because of the number of bills that passed during the 2017 legislative session affecting the agency’s license holders and the agency’s operations, a large number of draft rules were proposed. Combined with a large number of Proposals for Decision (PFD) arising out of cases that were heard at the State Office of Administrative Hearings (SOAH), the Commission meeting was substantially longer than a typical meeting.  And because of the fiscal year-end, the agency also had budgetary and internal audit issues to consider; a very full plate.

We were pleased to reappoint Brokers Gregg Glenn and Charlie Still to the Broker-Lawyer Committee and to recognize attorney Chuck Jacobus who retired after 12 years on the Committee and many years ably serving as its co-Chair. We also celebrated two special awards: one from Real Estate Educators Association (REEA) recognizing Susan Jones, the Chair of our Education Standards Advisory Committee (ESAC), with the Larry Outlaw Award for Excellence in Education for managing Texas’ effort to enhance both content and delivery standards for both qualifying and continuing education.  The second award was a Communications Award from ARELLO given to recognize the agency’s newly redesigned, upgraded and highly interactive website.  We continue to be very proud of our agency’s many achievements.

We approved the new content for the 2018-19 version of the Legal Update I & II courses, the Internal Audit Report and the FY 2018 Budget. We also delegated to the Executive Committee the final approval of the agency’s Self-Evaluation Report due to the Sunset Advisory Commission on September 1, 2017. This is the first step in the agency’s Sunset Review process that happens every 12 years; more to follow. We encourage all of our license holders to read this special report which we will post on our website.  

Most importantly, we proposed several rules that implement changes in laws that passed in the 2017 legislative session, including regarding changes to advertising rules that we have worked collaboratively with stakeholders to revise for over two years, including the professional associations of our license holders. The Broker-Lawyer Committee also recommended some updates to standard form contracts that we have proposed.  Now we rely on you to give us feedback to improve the proposed versions before adoption. Please read carefully and send any comments to general.counsel@trec.texas.gov as this is a key step to ensure the Commission adopts good public policy positions. Thank you.