Reciprocity: Another one bites the dust

A few years ago, the big topic among states was license reciprocity, which is an agreement between states to license non-resident real estate agents. In Pennsylvania, the legislature amended the Real Estate Licensing and Registration Act (RELRA) to provide for license reciprocity, and the provisions took effect in February 2004.

At the time, PAR engaged in a strong educational effort among states to encourage them to sign reciprocal agreements with the Commonwealth. At its peak, we had twelve reciprocal agreements.

Now, we’re down to eight.

First, Nebraska and Oklahoma terminated agreements due to changes in their laws that were not consistent with Pennsylvania.

Recently, Colorado changed its law to require that reciprocal licensees will have to take the state portion of the exam. Since the PA reciprocal agreement does not mandate the same requirement of Colorado licensees, the agreement became null and void.

In February, Wyoming made the decision to rescind all reciprocal licenses effective May 1, 2009. Reciprocal licenses issued will automatically convert to nonresident Wyoming licenses and will no longer be governed by the terms of the agreement.

At the State Real Estate Commission meeting this week, the Commissioners discussed the issue and adopted a motion to convert any licenses issued to licensees of those states who terminate reciprocal agreements to standard licenses. In addition, at the next renewal, these licensees must take continuing education as per all standard license holders.

At present, the Commission has only issued a total of 1,108 reciprocal licenses to individuals from other states. They do not track the number of Pennsylvania licensees who have received a reciprocal license from another state.