CT Real Estate common mistakes
CT Real Estate · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
On agency questions, marks the buyer as a client simply because the licensee showed homes or gave advice, without checking for a signed agency agreement or the required Connecticut agency disclosure.
Candidates use 'client' and 'customer' colloquially; the exam tests representation created by agreement and disclosure, not by the level of service provided.
What to do instead
Before answering any agency item, identify who signed what and when. Build a two-column client/customer table and recite the Connecticut agency disclosure rule until it is automatic.
Ends the confidentiality duty at closing or at the end of the brokerage relationship, then selects an answer that lets the licensee reveal the seller's motivation or the buyer's top price afterward.
Candidates study fiduciary duties as duties owed only during the representation and forget that confidentiality survives termination.
What to do instead
Memorize the duration rule: confidentiality continues after termination, subject to legally required disclosures and court orders. Practice items that place the disclosure after closing.
Treats an oral agreement to sell land, or an oral modification of a written sale contract, as enforceable because the parties shook hands or exchanged texts.
Candidates apply general contract principles and overlook the Statute of Frauds and its application to land sales and material modifications.
What to do instead
Use a one-line trigger: land sale = writing, signature of the party to be charged, and all essential terms. For modifications, ask whether the change is material and whether it must be signed.
Labels a contract 'void' when it is actually voidable, such as one involving a minor, intoxication, fraud, or duress, and then picks the remedy that follows from the wrong label.
The terms void, voidable, and unenforceable overlap in everyday speech, and candidates memorize definitions without applying them to facts.
What to do instead
Build a three-column chart: void (no legal effect), voidable (one party may rescind), unenforceable (valid but no remedy). Attach one fact pattern to each column and review weekly.
Describes an easement in gross as running with the land and benefiting a dominant parcel, then answers that a subsequent owner of the neighboring lot automatically gains the right.
All easements look similar on the exam, and candidates skip the dominant-tenement test.
What to do instead
Ask one question first: is there a dominant parcel? If no, it is in gross and generally personal to the holder. Draw dominant/servient diagrams for appurtenant easements.
Assumes a joint tenant can defeat the right of survivorship by leaving the property to someone in a will, or treats a tenancy in common as having survivorship.
Candidates mix up the co-ownership forms and the unities required for each, and they carry over wills concepts from personal property.
What to do instead
Memorize a co-ownership matrix: severalty, tenancy in common, joint tenancy, tenancy by the entirety, with columns for survivorship, unity requirements, and Connecticut-specific rules.
In the sales comparison approach, adjusts a comparable sale downward when the subject property is superior, reversing the direction of the adjustment.
Candidates focus on the subject's features instead of the rule that comparables are adjusted to the subject.
What to do instead
State the rule aloud: adjust the comparable, not the subject. If the subject is better, the comparable is inferior, so adjust the comparable upward. Practice five adjustment grids.
Calculates loan-to-value using the purchase price even when the appraisal comes in lower, producing an approve/deny or PMI answer that ignores the lender's collateral value.
Candidates memorize LTV as loan divided by price and forget the lesser-of rule used in underwriting.
What to do instead
Use the formula loan amount divided by the lesser of sales price or appraised value. Work three scenarios where the appraisal is below, equal to, and above the contract price.
Prorates property taxes, rents, or utilities to the wrong party or uses an inconsistent day count, then picks a debit/credit answer that is off by a day or by the direction of the entry.
Candidates have not settled on a convention for the closing day and confuse seller debits with buyer credits.
What to do instead
Adopt a fixed convention from the contract and closing instructions, write it at the top of scratch paper, and practice ten proration items tracking who owes through which day.
Lets an unlicensed assistant host an open house, quote terms, or discuss financing options, treating those tasks as clerical.
Candidates generalize from other states or from office practice and do not separate licensed activities from permissible unlicensed support.
What to do instead
Memorize a permissible/prohibited task list for unlicensed assistants. If the task involves negotiating, quoting terms, or advising on property, it requires a license.