# Oregon now disciplines a broker for not supervising unlicensed assistants

> House Bill 3137 adds a sixteenth ground for suspension or revocation: a managing principal broker who fails to exercise reasonable supervision and control. The written policy that duty requires now has to name how the office manages unlicensed assistants specifically, not just licensed staff.

**Section:** Compliance  
**Published:** August 18, 2026  
**Byline:** TC Bulletin Staff  
**Canonical URL:** https://tcbulletin.com/compliance/oregon-managing-broker-must-supervise-unlicensed-assistants  
**Publisher:** TC Bulletin (tcbulletin.com)

## Key points

- House Bill 3137, effective 1 January 2026, is described by the Oregon Real Estate Agency as the most significant changes to real estate license law in the last seven years.
- A new section, codified within ORS 696.010 to 696.495, requires a managing principal broker to maintain written policies, procedures and systems covering eight specific areas, including to 'manage usage of unlicensed assistants by associated brokers.'
- ORS 696.301 gains a sixteenth ground for discipline: a managing principal broker who 'failed to exercise reasonable supervision and control over the activities of associated real estate licensees' may be suspended, have their license revoked, or be reprimanded.
- The managing principal broker is responsible for the acts of all associated brokers related to professional real estate activities, and may allocate some or all of that supervisory control to a principal real estate broker only through a written supervisory agreement.
- Unlicensed practice in Oregon separately carries civil penalties of $1,000 to $2,500 for a first offense and $2,500 to $5,000 for subsequent offenses, on top of Class A misdemeanor criminal exposure.

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Most states answer the unlicensed-assistant question with a list: here is what an unassisted person may do. Oregon's newest answer is a duty instead, aimed at the broker rather than the assistant, and it now sits beside a specific reason a broker's own license can be suspended.

## What the law requires, item by item

House Bill 3137 was enacted in the 2025 legislative session and took effect on 1 January 2026. Its Section 20, now part of ORS 696.010 to 696.495, states that a managing principal broker shall exercise reasonable supervision and control over the activities of real estate brokers and principal real estate brokers associated with the managing principal broker. Reasonable supervision and control includes the establishment and enforcement of written policies, procedures and systems covering eight named areas.

1. Review and manage professional real estate activities of associated brokers.
2. Review and manage usage of disclosure forms and contracts.
3. Manage document filing and storage.
4. Manage handling of client trust funds.
5. Manage usage of unlicensed assistants by associated brokers.
6. Educate associated brokers on federal, state and local laws relating to the practice of real estate.
7. Review and inspect documents that may have a material effect on the rights or obligations of a party to a transaction.
8. Ensure all licensees associated with the managing principal broker hold active real estate licenses before conducting any professional real estate activity.

Item five is the one that names unlicensed assistants directly, and it sits in a statute for the first time. The section adds two further duties beyond the written policy itself: the managing principal broker must establish a system for monitoring compliance of associated brokers with statutes, rules and the brokerage's own policies, and is responsible for the acts of all associated brokers related to professional real estate activities performed while under that broker's supervision.

> **A managing broker is a new role, not a renamed one.** HB 3137 replaces 'principal real estate broker' with 'managing principal broker' as the top supervisory position at a brokerage in the sections it touches. A single-office managing principal broker with no other licensees associated is exempted from this section entirely.

## Where the discipline lands

The bill amends ORS 696.301, the statute listing every ground on which the Real Estate Commissioner may suspend or revoke a licensee's real estate license, reprimand a licensee, or deny a licence renewal. Fifteen grounds already existed, covering misrepresentation, undisclosed compensation, fraud, and incompetence among others. HB 3137 adds a sixteenth: 'If the licensee is a managing principal broker, failed to exercise reasonable supervision and control over the activities of associated real estate licensees.'

### HB 3137, as enacted

| Measure | Value | Note |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Effective | 1 January 2026 |  |
| New supervision duty | ORS 696.010 to 696.495, Section 20 |  |
| New discipline ground | ORS 696.301(16) |  |
| Unlicensed practice, first offense | $1,000 to $2,500 | Civil penalty. ORS 696.990 |
| Unlicensed practice, repeat offense | $2,500 to $5,000 | Plus Class A misdemeanor exposure |

That is a meaningful shift in where the exposure sits. Before this bill, a coordinator or assistant who stepped into licensed activity created unlicensed-practice exposure for themselves and, indirectly, for the broker who allowed it under general negligent-supervision principles. Now the broker's own conduct, specifically a failure to have and enforce the written policy the statute demands, is itself a named, standalone ground for discipline against the broker's license.

## What a written policy on unlicensed assistants has to do

The statute does not prescribe the content of the policy, only that it must exist, be enforced, and specifically address usage of unlicensed assistants by associated brokers. The Oregon Real Estate Agency's own guidance, published ahead of the effective date, restates the duty as being to 'manage the use of unlicensed assistants by Brokers,' alongside the other seven areas, and states plainly that the managing principal broker 'is ultimately responsible for the professional real estate activity of all associated brokers.'

- What tasks an unlicensed assistant or transaction coordinator may perform at the brokerage, stated affirmatively rather than left to inference from what is prohibited elsewhere in the license law.
- How the brokerage will monitor whether that boundary is being kept, since the statute separately requires a compliance-monitoring system.
- Who at the brokerage is accountable if it is not, given that responsibility for associated brokers' conduct now runs to the managing principal broker by statute.

> **What this changes for an Oregon coordinator directly.** The coordinator's own legal exposure for unlicensed practice is unchanged by this bill. What changes is that the coordinator now has something concrete to ask for: a written policy the broker is statutorily required to maintain, naming what the coordinator may do. A coordinator working without one is working inside a gap the broker is now personally exposed for leaving open.

## The agency is separately asking whether coordinators need their own rule

HB 3137 regulates supervision of unlicensed assistants generally. It does not create a defined category for transaction coordinators specifically, and the Oregon Real Estate Agency has been examining that gap on a separate track this year. TC Bulletin covers that inquiry, including an open stakeholder survey, in a companion story on The Desk.

> **Scope of this story.** TC Bulletin read the enrolled bill text and the Oregon Real Estate Agency's own summary. This is not legal advice. What a specific brokerage's written policy must say to satisfy the statute, and whether a specific task falls inside or outside licensed activity, are questions for the agency or the broker's counsel.

### Primary sources for this story

- [Enrolled House Bill 3137 (HB 3137-B)](https://olis.oregonlegislature.gov/liz/2025R1/Downloads/MeasureDocument/HB3137): 2025 Regular Session. Sections 18 to 20 amend ORS 696.301 and add the supervision duty
- [Oregon Real Estate Agency, new license laws and rules effective January 1](https://www.oregon.gov/rea/newsroom/pages/2025-oren-j/new-real-estate-license-laws-and-rules-effective-january-1.aspx): September 2025
- [Oregon Real Estate Agency rulemaking](https://www.oregon.gov/rea/Pages/Rulemaking.aspx)
- [TC Bulletin on Oregon's review of the transaction coordinator role](https://tcbulletin.com/desk/oregon-weighs-formal-rule-for-transaction-coordinators)

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## Sources cited

- Enrolled House Bill 3137: https://olis.oregonlegislature.gov/liz/2025R1/Downloads/MeasureDocument/HB3137
- Oregon Real Estate Agency: https://www.oregon.gov/rea/newsroom/pages/2025-oren-j/new-real-estate-license-laws-and-rules-effective-january-1.aspx

Topics: unlicensed-assistants, oregon

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