In Florida, real estate corporations are regulated by the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation, while the actual brokers and salespersons who manage or work for a real estate corporation are more directly regulated by the Division of Real Estate and the Florida Real Estate Commission. While that sounds like a lot of agency regulation, it is in fact not too difficult to meet the legal requirements for operation of a real estate business. In this fact sheet, we'll take you through the steps necessary to open up your brand new Florida real estate corporation.

Obtaining Your Registration

Let's start with the basics: what is a real estate company? As per the state of Florida, “A real estate company is any partnership, limited liability company, or corporation which acts as a broker. Limited liability companies will be licensed as 'CQ.' Partnerships and limited liability partnerships will be licensed as 'PR'” The differences between limited liability companies, partnerships, and limited liability partnerships are fairly technical – in short, they have to do with both taxation and the extent to which the owner of the company can be personally liable for the company's debts. You'll definitely want to speak with an attorney prior to deciding which corporate form works best for you.

The other key thing to remember is that Florida, like most states, differentiates between real estate brokers and real estate salespeople, and this difference is most relevant to the issue of real estate corporations, because only brokers may register and open real estate offices, and only brokers may serve as officers, directors, members, managers, or general partners in a brokerage. Again, sounds pretty complex, but it boils down to this: salespeople may own a brokerage, but they may not be a corporate officer of one, and they may not open and manage a real estate office. The distinction is in management and corporate structure. Got it?

With those important points in mind, let's take a look at the steps required to open a real estate business:

• As explained above, obtain your broker's license. We have dealt with this in a separate fact sheet on this site, but the gist is you must successfully complete both a combined educational program and an examination.

• Here's something to note: only a qualifying broker may actually submit the application, and salespeople cannot be officers or managers as described above. However, non-real estate professionals may be officers of the corporation – they simply cannot actually file the application for registration themselves.

• Fill out the appropriate application available at this link. There is a fee of 77 dollars, which is payable online, or by check or money order.

 

Maintaining Your Registration

Real estate corporations in Florida are subject to periodic and routine reviews by the Division of Real Estate to ensure they are in compliance with all relevant statutes (a guide to those statutes is available here). Because a broker must be a managing partner or officer of the corporation, discipline of the business is concomitant with discipline of the broker him or herself – if that broker's license is pulled for unlawful or unethical behavior, the real estate corporation will consequently cease to exist. This process can also begin with a complaint made against a broker, salesperson, or real estate business by a member of the public.

There are myriad rules and regulations for running a brokerage, far more than we could get into in this fact sheet, although one thing to keep in mind is that managing brokers are responsible for ensuring that all brokers and salespeople working for their brokerages have current licenses – this is an incumbent duty on a managing broker. Check out the useful links on the right hand side of this page for a few quick “laymen's terms” guides to commonly asked legal questions.