Not a citizen? No Green Card? No problem!

I received this email from the Bureau of Real Estate and I wanted to share it with all of our stakeholders.

This is to inform you that all individuals who submit an application for a real estate license received on or after January 1, 2016 will no longer need to submit proof of legal presence in the United States.

On September 28, 2014, the Governor signed Senate Bill 1159 (Lara, Chapter 752, Statutes of 2014), which adds Section 135.5 to the Business & Professions Code (BPC), changing the legal presence requirements to obtain a real estate license. Current law requires an individual to provide proof of legal presence (proof of U.S. citizenship or legal alien status), in the United States in order to obtain a real estate license. SB 1159, which becomes effective on January 1, 2016, will remove the legal presence requirement from the application process. Applicants will still be required to provide a social security number or an individual taxpayer identification number for licensure. Please make appropriate changes to your materials and inform your students of the changes to the requirements for licensure.

What this will likely lead to is the elimination of the RE 205 form as well as the need to show either US Citizenship or the possession of a Alien Registration Card “Green Card”. We will update our processes as this date comes closer.

This isn’t the forum to discuss the politics of this, but I wanted to let you know of the upcoming change.

Best regards,

Kartik Subramaniam