(8-15-2025) MREC License Law updated with 2025 spring legislative changes. Click here for details.
2025 Statutory Additions / Amendments
A. E-Mail Notice of Changes Affecting Licenses
Five (5) business days prior written notice to licensees and their responsible broker of any change affecting a license (suspension, revocation or non–renewal). Notice must be provided by email.
Statutory language: Subsection (3) was added to §73-35-10 so that the statute now reads:
§73-35-10(3):
The commission shall provide prior written notification to any licensee whose license, once issued, is subject to be amended, suspended, revoked or not renewed. Said notice shall be delivered to the licensee whose license shall be affected and, if applicable, to their responsible broker, not less than five (5) business days prior to the effective date of the change. For purposes of this subsection, written notice shall be delivered to the email address for the licensee and broker on file with the commission.
B. Timelines to Process Complaints / Conduct Hearings
When a licensee receives a Notice of Investigation, we now have 120 days to complete our investigation and issue a formal Complaint or dismiss the case.
When MREC issues a formal Complaint, we must have a final ruling (following a hearing), an Agreed Order resolving the Complaint, or a dismissal of the Complaint within 1 year.
If an Attorney General Hearing Officer conducts the hearing, 60 additional days may be allowed to accommodate the AG Hearing Officer’s schedule if necessary.
Statutory language: Subsection (9) was added to §73-35-23 so that the statute now reads:
§73-35-23(9):
Any complaint initiated by the commission or filed with it shall be resolved by dismissal or issuance of a formal complaint within one hundred twenty (120) days of the date written notice is provided to licensee(s) and their responsible broker(s) of commencement of an investigation pertaining to any complaint.
Any complaint initiated by the commission or filed with it shall be resolved by final dismissal, final ruling on any formal complaint or by entry of agreed dispositional order within one (1) year of the date written notice is provided to licensee(s) and their responsible broker(s) of commencement of an investigation pertaining to any complaint. The requirement for final disposition within one (1) year in this subsection shall not operate to deprive any licensee of the right to utilize the administrative hearing option provided for by law and any administrative hearing may be scheduled to occur not more than sixty (60) days outside the one-year-time limit in cases where administrative hearing officers are not reasonably available to conduct hearings within the one-year period.
Note: §73-35-23 was further amended to reinstate the “clear and convincing” standard of proof necessary to prove violations at an administrative hearing. This “heightened” standard of proof had been amended in 2022 to impose a lesser “preponderance of evidence” standard. MREC has always utilized the heightened “clear and convincing” standard both before and after the 2022 amendment. Thus, this will not affect our legal counsel’s usual manner of conducting hearings.