Professional Conduct
The conduct baseline
Professional conduct questions test integrity, competence, transparency and fairness. Candidates should know duties owed to clients, to other parties, and to the regulator.
Key duties
Understand honesty and fair dealing; acting in the client's best interest within the law; avoiding conflicts of interest and disclosing them where unavoidable; keeping client information confidential; maintaining competence; and cooperating with the regulator. Marketing must be accurate and not misleading. Commission and fee arrangements must be disclosed clearly.
Conflicts of interest
A classic trap is dual agency - acting for both buyer and seller without informed written consent. Another is receiving undisclosed commission from a third party, such as a developer or mortgage intermediary. Disclosure must be timely and specific, not buried in general terms.
Common traps
Questions often present a broker who withholds a material defect to close a sale, or who shares client information casually. Others test whether a broker may act on a client's unlawful instruction (they may not), and whether confidentiality survives the end of the engagement (it generally does, subject to legal exceptions).
Rule of thumb
Ask: would a reasonable client, fully informed, consider this fair and transparent? If disclosure is needed to answer yes, disclose.
Worked example
A broker is offered a bonus by a developer for steering a buyer to a particular project. Correct answer: the arrangement must be disclosed to the buyer before any recommendation; undisclosed steering is a conduct violation.