HOW DOES CONTINUING EDUCATION GET PROCESSED?
If you are like most agents, you don’t think much about your Continuing Education requirements until you get that renewal notice in the mail. But here’s the catch. Your license renews as the end of the month, but the state requires that you have your Continuing Education requirements, or CE, complete by the 15th of the month before you renew. Why is that?
The Division is actually trying to make things easier for you. They require that CE providers submit student credit directly to the state, so that when it comes time for renewal, you won’t have to worry about tracking down all those CE certificates. They will already have all of your credits in their system. But that’s where the 15 days early requirement comes in. They allow 10 days for the schools, the CE providers, to turn in that credit. By rule, they also have 5 days to process any CE credit that is submitted. Those time frames help account for weekends, holidays, system issues, employee turnover, any number of things that may prevent the credit from processing the same day.
Now in our modern connected world, it is common for CE providers to submit CE credits to the state regularly. We do it every weeknight. And the Division of Real Estate also usually only takes 1 or 2 business days to process the CE credit coming in, and have it appear in their Real Estate License Management System, the RELMS. That is the kind of service and response I would expect. But if there’s a problem, and your CE isn’t submitted to the Division in 1 day, or 2 days, don’t go crying to them, they won’t consider any complaints that the CE provider hasn’t submitted the CE credit, until after the 10 days allowed by rule. Same thing for their own 5 days for processing. So while you can often get renewed on time even if you complete credit after the 15th of the month, don’t count on it. Get your CE completed early and on-time. In fact, make a point of taking a CE class that interests you every few months. Then you will get all the credit you need, without having to sweat when the 15th of your renewal month comes around.
Don’t throw away those certificates though. If for some reason the CE provider doesn’t submit the credit, you can take the signed certificates in to the Division and prove your case.
One more thing in your favor. If the renewal deadline falls on a weekend or holiday, the Division of Real Estate will give you until the next business day to get it taken care of. They’ve put several safeguards in place for your benefit, so do them and yourself a favor, and get it done on time.
Dan Naylor