Illinois REALTORS® Chief Legal Counsel Betsy Urbance and association Deputy CEO Jeff Baker present at a Legal Breakfast held at the Gateway Center in Collinsville, Ill., as part of the Illinois REALTORS® Conference and Expo May 8-9, 2019.

Illinois REALTORS® and the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation have reached a tentative agreement on a draft rewrite of the state’s Real Estate License Act.  

Deputy CEO Jeff Baker told REALTORS® attending a Legal Breakfast held as the kickoff for the second day of the association’s Conference & Expo in Collinsville that the process has taken more than a year to accomplish.  

“This rewrite will be highly beneficial to our members, and is close to everything we wanted,” Baker said.  

A key change to the act’s language will be increased attention on training for new brokers during their first two years in the real estate business, Baker said. The two-year period is a formative one for those choosing real estate as a career, and making sure best practices are a focus should make the industry better for consumers and practitioners.  

Baker also urged those overseeing offices to consider making sure they have an updated safety plan that takes into account an active shooter situation.  

“If you haven’t done one of these before, it’s not a fun thing to do,” Baker said.  

He told those in the audience that each office is different, so each plan would need to be adjusted to a specific location.  

Also presenting at the breakfast was Illinois REALTORS® Chief Legal Counsel Betsy Urbance, who took questions on a variety of topics ranging from agency to disclosure. She also addressed the topic of “pop-up” real estate offices and what the state law requires for an office to be official under the law.