Successful advertising reaches a wide range of people. Make sure that you present a professional and legally compliant advertising campaign. Although ads are targeted to potential clients, they also reach Maryland Real Estate Commission members, staff and other real estate professionals. In Maryland, an advertisement includes but is not necessarily limited to, any correspondence, mailing, newsletter, brochure, business card, for sale or for lease sign, any rider, promotional item, automobile signage, telephone directory listing, television announcement, radio announcement, telephone solicitation or web and internet voiceover.

All of your communications that fall under the above criteria must be compliant with Maryland law and associated regulations. To assist licensees with compliance, the commission’s advertising task force created a useful checklist. Using this tool to check your proposed advertisement will assist with keeping your advertisements legally compliant. The checklist can be found online.

Under broker supervision, your broker is responsible for reviewing all advertisements prior to them being placed. If the commission finds an advertising violation, we directly contact the licensee’s broker to bring the advertisement into compliance.

As a result of successful 2017 legislation, Maryland’s real estate law was changed to allow for electronic notifications to licensees. The changes affected
§17-314 (d) and enabled the MREC and other licensing authorities to send electronic reminders and other important information to licensees. During the phase-in period, which is one complete two-year licensing cycle, customers will receive both electronic and mailed notifications. Once the two-year cycle is complete, only electronic communications will be sent. Some licensees may incur delays in receiving information when the phase-in is complete because they have not updated their email address associated with their license. Updating your email address is very easy through the online portal to access and update your record.

We are also seeing a greater incidence of licensees employing email blockers. These email blockers ask senders to complete a request to send emails to an email address. If you do not set up the Maryland Real Estate Commission as an email that you allow, you will block emails sent to you with important information related to renewal reminders, etc. This may contribute to you not renewing on time, putting your transactions at risk, as well causing you to incur additional fees to reinstate your license. Please ensure you are not blocking our important communications!

Updating your email address with the MREC is fast and easy. Simply log into the Real Estate Commission portal to access your record and update your information. Then ensure that you are not blocking commission emails.