Virginia Real Estate Law, Board Regulations, and Licensing Requirements
The Board and its reach
The Virginia Real Estate Board (VREB), staffed through the Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation (DPOR), licenses and disciplines brokers, salespersons, and firms, and writes the regulations that govern practice. Candidates must know the entry requirements: 60 hours of approved pre-license education for a salesperson and 180 hours for a broker, plus experience for the broker license. A salesperson always works under a supervising broker; commissions are paid to the brokerage, never directly to a salesperson and never to an unlicensed person. Licenses renew in two-year cycles with continuing education that includes mandated ethics and fair-housing hours, plus post-license education for new licensees.
Operating rules
Licensees must maintain escrow funds without commingling, produce records on Board demand, advertise under the firm's licensed name, register team names with the Board, and keep unlicensed assistants inside administrative boundaries-no negotiating, no quoting commissions, no independent open houses.
Traps
Questions routinely swap the pre-license hours (60 vs. 180), test whether an unlicensed assistant may take a percentage of a commission (no), and probe supervision-the principal broker is answerable for the acts of licensees in the firm. Another favorite: a licensee changing firms must be released by the former broker and registered with the new one before practicing.
Rule of thumb
60 = salesperson, 180 = broker; money flows client → brokerage → licensee. If an answer choice pays anyone else, it is wrong.