Learning that your fitness to maintain your real estate license is under scrutiny is an undoubtedly stressful experience. Your real estate license represents a hard-earned achievement, your livelihood, and your opportunity to reach future financial and career-related goals. Yet, while you may be understandably angry, confused, frustrated, or even heartbroken, it's important to remain calm and to act thoughtfully. The ways in which you choose to respond to this situation could make or break your ability to keep your license.
The trusted Professional License Defense Team at the Lento Law Firm represents realtors, brokers, and real estate agents not just throughout Connecticut but across the entire United States. As a result of our experience, we understand just how easy it is for a mistake, misunderstanding, or malice from a competitor to result in a real estate license investigation. We also understand how to respond to such actions in ways that safeguard our clients' reputations and professional standing.
Given all that your real estate license means to you, the time to start building a strong defense strategy is now. Call 888-535-3686 or contact our team online to start benefitting from a personalized, knowledgeable approach that uniquely reflects your needs and circumstances. Our firm's track record speaks for itself; put it to work for you today.
Professional Challenges That Can Put a License at Risk in Connecticut
When trying to keep calm, it can help to remember that the state recognizes that everyone – in their professional lives, not just their personal ones – makes mistakes. The Connecticut Real Estate Commission is tasked, in part, with determining whether complaints filed against licensed real estate professionals in The Constitution State warrant disciplinary action. If it can be proven that a misunderstanding has occurred, false allegations have been filed; a mistake was made in good faith, etc., a professional whose license is under scrutiny should have their case resolved favorably. This means that simply because you've had a complaint filed against you doesn't mean that your career is over or even that it is in serious jeopardy. By reacting to your circumstances thoughtfully and proactively – and by seeking out necessary legal guidance and support immediately – you'll place yourself in the strongest possible position to benefit from a favorable outcome to this stressful situation.
As you're trying to remain calm, it can also help to remember that you're not alone. Many of your colleagues – very likely including some whom you like, trust, and/or respect – have stood where you are standing now. The most common reasons why real estate professionals in Connecticut have complaints filed against them involve the following alleged behaviors:
- Acting on behalf of multiple parties to a particular transaction without obtaining the proper consent and/or commissions from all relevant parties
- Broker/licensee relationship violations
- Comingling personal funds of licensees and principals
- Criminal convictions involving fraud, dishonesty, or other serious concerns
- Dishonesty or fraud
- Due diligence concerns
- Failure to ascertain and/or disclose certain material facts, relationships, or other information as required by law
- False advertising
- False promise likely to induce, influence, or persuade
- Financial missteps, including failure to properly manage funds belonging to others
- Material misrepresentation
- Permitting active participation of unlicensed persons in brokerage or real property transactions
- Professional incompetence
It is also commonplace for real estate professionals to be scrutinized for allegedly failing to maintain a record and reputation of honesty, competency, financial integrity, and fair dealing. Yet, just as lawyers, doctors, accountants, and other licensed professionals are empowered to present a defense in front of their respective state licensing boards in the wake of allegations of alleged misconduct, so are real estate professionals. And, with a thoughtful approach and strong evidence on their side, targets of scrutiny can work to clear their names and restore the strength of their reputations.
Filing a Complaint Against a Real Estate Professional in Connecticut
The Connecticut Real Estate Commission is a division of the state's Department of Consumer Protection. The aim of professional licensing boards, including this one, is to ensure that the public benefits from safe and reliable standards of professional practice. Unfortunately, professional boards are often placed under intense pressure to make examples out of those who have allegedly done wrong in an effort to secure justice, make headlines, advance policy agendas, or “simply” inspire other professionals to behave in certain ways. As a result, it's important to – while remaining calm – treat the Board as if it is an adversarial body. Although it may broadly act in the interests of the state's real estate professionals, it may be under great pressure to make an example out of you specifically. Therefore, your defense strategy needs to be rock-solid and executed with precision.
Anyone can file a complaint against a licensed Connecticut real estate professional. If certain criteria are met (and the allegations are potentially legitimate), the Board will launch an investigation into the alleged wrongdoing of any professional who is the target of such a complaint. Specifically, a licensing complaint must:
- Be submitted in writing
- Detail the supposed facts upon which the complaint is based
- Indicate the amount of loss (if any) claimed by the complainant
- Include evidence that supports the complaint at issue
In the event that the person filing a complaint is seeking restitution (up to $25,000) from the state's Real Estate Guaranty Fund, the complaint must detail:
- The act or omission of concern
- Confirmation that the transaction at issue regards real property located in Connecticut
- Circumstances under which property or funds were procured by embezzlement, false pretenses, forgery, fraud, misrepresentation, or theft
Complaints are most often filed by disgruntled customers. However, they are also often filed by competitors, colleagues, and those seeking to hurt the targets of their allegations. For example, some professionals have been targeted while navigating divorce or child custody proceedings in the hopes that their alleged misconduct will lead to a more favorable family law outcome for their spouse and/or child's other parent. Whatever the circumstances of the complaint against you may be, know that the fact that you are being investigated accordingly is common practice. While you need to treat this process very seriously, you are not the first to face it, you won't be the last, and you don't need to navigate it alone.
Investigating and Responding to a Real Estate Licensing Complaint
Connecticut law governing real estate licensing insists that “before refusing, suspending or revoking any license or imposing any fine under this chapter, the commission shall give notice and afford an opportunity for hearing as provided in the regulations adopted by the Commissioner of Consumer Protection.” This means that you have due process rights to be notified of the allegations that have been filed against you and to present your defense at a hearing before the Board can take any adverse action against you.
Once you receive a notice that details the nature of the complaint that has been filed against you, you will likely have 15 days to file a notice of defense. This means that you won't need to be ready to defend against these allegations immediately, but you will need to inform the Board – within this time period – that you intend to present a defense. As the Board's investigation against you unfolds, it bears repeating that you'll need to remain calm and measured as our Professional License Defense Team crafts your defense. Don't vent about your situation on social media, and don't contact the complainant or anyone they may call upon as a witness. Maintain professionalism and calm to better ensure that the Board eventually resolves your case in your favor.
Your case may ultimately be resolved in a number of ways. Our team has found that handling matters with great discretion and respect leaves the greatest room to seek resolution before any formal hearing takes place. We may be able to negotiate a settlement on your behalf or present evidence so compelling that the investigation into your alleged misconduct is wrapped before you need to present a formal defense. But, if those outcomes cannot be reached, we can advocate for your interests at the evidentiary hearing, to which you are entitled by law to participate.
It is important to treat the formal hearing process with the utmost seriousness. It is ultimately the Board that will decide whether to take any adverse action against your license and professional standing. If you do not invest in a strong legal defense strategy, the Board may decide to impose:
- Fines
- Probation
- Reprimand or censure
- Temporary license suspension
- Permanent license revocation
The Board may also opt to impose a combination of these professional sanctions at its discretion. Although any kind of unfavorable outcome to an investigation by the Board is less than ideal, it is particularly important to avoid temporary license revocation and permanent license revocation. If your license is revoked, your real estate career is over unless you're able to successfully appeal the Board's decision. And even though a suspension of your license is a temporary sanction, any time spent away from your livelihood could impact your business, your personal finances, your reputation, and your ability to “bounce back” from this turn of events. Allowing our trusted and experienced team to craft a personalized defense strategy on your behalf can help to ensure that the integrity of your career remains intact.
Complaints Filed with the Connecticut Association of Realtors
In addition to facing scrutiny from the state for alleged wrongdoing, you may be subjected to an investigation for ethics violations if someone has filed a complaint against you with the Connecticut Association of Realtors. A grievance tribunal may be initiated by the Association if an official complaint is filed:
- Has been submitted within 180 days of the alleged ethics violation at issue
- Has been submitted within 180 days of when the complainant should have reasonably known about the allegedly unethical conduct of concern
- Includes a narrative description of the circumstances under scrutiny
- Cites at least one of the articles of the Code of Ethics that has allegedly been violate
While the Association cannot revoke, suspend, or otherwise affect your licensing status, it can fine you and/or suspend or terminate your membership, which can be a professionally significant turn of events. Therefore, it's important to let our team know if you're facing allegations of an ethics violation so that we can help you with your defense accordingly.
Should You Represent Yourself?
You have demonstrated through your education and practice that you are a true professional. Given that you are licensed in real estate, you may understandably feel confident in your own abilities to defend that license without support. Yet, doing so is ill-advised. Professional licensing defense is a notoriously complicated and high-stakes endeavor. Far too many professionals who choose to represent their own interests ultimately regret that decision when their careers are impacted by Boards of Licensure pressured to discipline professionals for any number of reasons.
To successfully defend against allegations of wrongdoing, nuanced arguments must be made, delicate procedures navigated in exacting ways, and evidence presented subject to the ins and outs of a particular jurisdiction. Your livelihood is at stake. You can't risk a misstep.
Legal Assistance Is Available Now
The Board is tasked with investigating and disciplining real estate professionals, not defending their interests when it comes to complaints made by the public. If your fitness to maintain your license is under scrutiny, the only way forward is to seek personalized legal advocacy that is trusted, knowledgeable, and has an undeniable track record.
The Lento Law Firm's Professional License Defense Team is ready to work tirelessly to safeguard your personal and professional interests as your situation evolves. Seek personalized guidance and support today by calling 888-535-3686 or by contacting us online. You've worked hard to earn your license and to build a career. Let us protect it for you.
