Real estate services and who is exempt from a real estate license

Start with the service, then test the exemption

Florida real estate brokerage includes selling, buying, exchanging, renting, leasing, auctioning, and negotiating real property transactions for others for compensation. Procuring prospects can also be brokerage work. A fee called a referral payment can still pay for a regulated service.

An exemption depends on the person, duties, property, and compensation, not just a job title. An education exemption is not permission to practice without a license.

Ownership and employment

Under Florida Statutes section 475.011(2), an entity or individual may sell, exchange, or lease its own real property. The exemption does not extend to the owner's ordinary public-facing sales or leasing business to the extent it employs an agent, employee, or independent contractor paid strictly by transaction to perform those transactions. A developer's commission-paid salesperson cannot simply borrow the owner's exemption.

Section 475.011(3) covers specified public utility, rural electric cooperative, railroad, and state or local government employees acting for their employer's use, within employment, with no compensation beyond salary. Section 475.011(4) covers salaried onsite apartment leasing employees of the owner or a registered broker for the owner. Section 475.011(5) covers salaried condominium or cooperative managers arranging unit rentals no longer than one year.

Limited roles and payments

Section 475.011(1) exempts an attorney in fact for executing contracts or conveyances only. It also covers attorneys and certified public accountants within professional duties, specified representatives appointed by will or court, and qualifying trustees. A power of attorney is not a general exemption for compensated brokerage negotiations.

Under section 475.011(13), an apartment owner or property management firm may pay a tenant in that complex a referral benefit worth no more than $50 per transaction. Rent credits count. This does not authorize the unlicensed tenant to advertise prospect-procurement services.

Section 475.011(12) provides a specialized business-enterprise exemption for specified securities dealers and federally insured depository institutions and their related entities dealing with accredited investors. It does not cover an unrelated standalone real property transaction.

Valuation is a separate boundary

Under section 475.612, a Florida real estate licensee may provide a comparative market analysis or price opinion in ordinary business, but may not call it an appraisal. A real estate license does not confer an appraiser credential. Apply each exemption to its stated activity and conditions.