National agency practice
Agency practice: who can act, for whom, and when?
A broker can introduce a buyer without having authority to sign the seller’s contract. A seller can pay a buyer’s broker without becoming that broker’s client. Those distinctions are the work of an agency question. Start with the people, then check the authority, duty and timing.
Last reviewed:
The short answer
For an agency question, identify the represented client, the individual agent, any unrepresented customer and the sponsoring brokerage. Trace actual authority to the principal’s instructions and apparent authority to the principal’s conduct toward the third party, including reasonable detrimental reliance. Read the agreement before deciding whether compensation is earned or authority continues. Illinois questions also require its statutory designated-agency, disclosure and dual-consent rules. Payment alone does not determine representation. Do not substitute a national ministerial-assistance shortcut for the current Illinois designated-agency default.
Reviewed October 27, 2026. The PSI outline effective June 24, 2026 assigns 13 of 100 scored national broker questions to the whole Agency domain, not to this page. These are original teaching questions. National vocabulary is separated from Illinois law; another state’s transaction-broker or ministerial-assistance rule does not replace Illinois requirements. A practice percentage alone cannot establish exam readiness.
Map the people, authority and duties, then check Illinois timing
- Map the relationships. Name the principal or represented client, the individual agent, any customer, the other party and the firm. Being paid by someone is different from representing that person. The same person can be a customer of one licensee while represented by another.
- Trace the authority and its scope. Express actual authority is directly granted; implied actual authority covers what the authorised role and circumstances support. Apparent authority concerns principal-created appearances to the third party, reasonable belief and detrimental reliance. An agent’s unsupported statement is not enough. A job title, licence or business card does not establish unlimited signing authority.
- Read the agreement and instrument. A special agent has a limited assignment; a general agent has a continuing range of matters within a role. Neither label makes every act authorised. A listing is not automatically a power to sign a purchase contract, deed or mortgage for the owner. An attorney-in-fact acts under a power of attorney and need not be a lawyer; its terms and governing law matter.
- Match the duty to the person and the information. The national memory aid OLDCAR means obedience to lawful instructions, loyalty, disclosure, confidentiality, accounting and reasonable care. It is a study aid, not every state’s complete statute. A customer is still owed the treatment required by law. A client’s negotiating limit differs from a physical-condition fact that must be disclosed.
- Check the timeline and separate consequences. An agreement can expire or authority can be revoked, but do not assume that every apparent-authority issue, confidentiality duty, accounting obligation or contract claim disappears. Ratification requires informed adoption of an otherwise ratifiable unauthorised act. It is not a cure for a contract that the principal had no legal power to make.
- For Illinois, use the statutory relationship first. A consumer working with the licensee is represented as the designated agent’s client unless a written agreement with the sponsoring broker establishes another lawful relationship. The former ministerial-act exception is not the current rule. A missing document does not by itself prove that the person is merely a customer. Designated-agency notice, a brokerage agreement and dual consent are distinct requirements with different timing.
- Distinguish Illinois writing deadlines. Designated-agency identification is due no later than beginning that work. Customer no-agency notice must prevent mistaken confidential disclosure and be no later than offer preparation. The current agreement rule requires seller agreements before marketing or listing; buyer agreements before or as soon as reasonably practical after licensed assistance, subject to the stricter listing-side and dual-agency provisions. Do not use the general buyer timing to postpone a prior dual consent or required listing-side notice.
| Fact supplied | Check | Avoid this shortcut |
|---|---|---|
| Seller funds buyer-broker compensation | Identify the buyer’s representation agreement | The payer must be the client |
| Principal permits a manager to appear authorised | Reasonable detrimental reliance and any notice | The manager’s claim alone proves it |
| Owner authorises marketing only | Read the actual signing authority | A listing lets the broker sign the sale |
| Client gives an expressly unlawful instruction | Lawful obedience and applicable law | Loyalty requires compliance |
| Seller’s bottom-line price is shared privately | Confidentiality and any authorised or required disclosure | A buyer is entitled to every negotiating secret |
| An agency appointment ends | Actual authority, third-party notice and surviving duties | Everything ends for everyone immediately |
| A national question mentions a facilitator | Use the stated jurisdiction and rule | Illinois must recognise the same category |
| One Illinois firm has opposing designated agents | Identify the individuals and their clients | Every affiliated agent is automatically dual |
| Illinois listing agent assists an unrepresented buyer | Executed seller agreement and prior written no-agency notice | A blank form automatically removes agency duties |
| One Illinois individual would represent both sides | Prior informed written consent of all clients and the statutory safeguards | A seller’s permission alone is enough |
The distinctions that matter
| Distinction | How it works | What to notice |
|---|---|---|
| Client and customer | Representation creates client duties; nonrepresentation does not remove every duty. | Ask whose client, rather than treating customer as a permanent personal label. |
| Express and implied actual authority | Both concern actual authority; one is stated directly and the other follows from the authorised role and circumstances. | Necessary routine steps are different from an expressly forbidden act. |
| Actual and apparent authority | Instructions to the agent differ from appearances attributable to the principal on which a third party reasonably and detrimentally relies. | Private limits and notice to outsiders are separate questions. |
| Special and general agent | A limited assignment differs from an ongoing class of business. | Read the grant; a property-manager title is not unlimited power. |
| Ratification and apparent authority | Informed later adoption differs from principal-created authority appearances relied on at the relevant time. | Later advertising cannot establish reliance on it before it existed. |
| Exclusive right to sell and exclusive agency | Traditional labels distinguish an agreed fee despite an owner-produced buyer from a specified owner-sale exception. | The supplied terms and fee triggers control. |
| Open listing and no agreement | A traditional open listing is nonexclusive; it is not automatically permission to ignore written-agreement requirements. | In Illinois, apply the current agreement rule. |
| Authority and compensation | Permission to act differs from whether an agreed fee or damages claim is due. | An unexpired term alone does not authorise ignoring actual revocation. |
| Designated and dual agency | Separate individual agents in one firm differ from the same individual representing adverse clients. | Illinois designation is not automatic individual dual agency. |
| Disclosure and permission | Identifying an interest differs from satisfying every required consent or a prohibition. | A prohibited dual role is not cured by an ownership disclosure. |
Work through the facts
A commission payment does not change the client
A buyer has a valid representation agreement with Brokerage B. The seller agrees to fund B’s negotiated fee. No other relationship change occurs.
- The agreement identifies the buyer’s representation.
- Illinois expressly says payment or a promise of payment is not determinative of agency.
Answer: B continues to represent the buyer under the stated relationship. Follow any separate compensation and agreement requirements.
Marketing authority is narrower than signing authority
A seller authorises a broker to market a property and present offers, expressly reserving acceptance and signing to the seller. No other authority, ratification or principal-created appearance of signing power is supplied.
- The broker has an assignment, but the facts expressly limit it.
- Presenting an offer is different from accepting it for the owner.
Answer: The broker cannot sign acceptance merely because the broker holds the listing.
Private revocation and an outsider’s position differ
An owner has repeatedly told a tenant that a manager may sign routine renewals. The owner privately revokes that authority. Before receiving notice, the tenant reasonably relies on the owner’s unchanged representation to the tenant’s detriment. Assume no separate legal barrier.
- The private instruction ends the manager’s actual permission under the supplied facts.
- The stated principal-created appearance and reliance raise a distinct apparent-authority issue.
Answer: Do not answer that private revocation necessarily ends every third-party consequence. Actual and apparent authority require separate analysis.
Later evidence cannot supply earlier reliance
A prospective tenant signs solely on an unauthorised person’s unsupported promise. Only afterward does the person install the owner’s logo at the premises. No other principal-created manifestation or informed ratification is supplied.
- The logo was not present when the tenant acted.
- The agent’s own promise and a later display do not establish the required earlier reliance on the principal’s appearance.
Answer: Those facts do not establish apparent authority. The timing of the evidence matters, as the published Cove Management opinion illustrates.
Protect the confidence, disclose the required fact
An Illinois seller’s agent knows both the seller’s confidential minimum price and a latent material adverse physical condition that would not be discovered by a reasonably diligent inspection. No permission or legal requirement to disclose the minimum price is supplied.
- The minimum price is negotiating information.
- The physical-condition facts expressly satisfy the stated customer-disclosure conditions.
Answer: Protect the qualifying price confidence and timely disclose the specified physical fact. Do not give both pieces of information the same treatment.
Use the stated listing terms
A national exercise expressly says an exclusive-agency listing owes no broker fee when the owner independently finds the buyer, and supplies no other fee trigger. The owner does exactly that during the term.
- The question supplies the owner-sale exception.
- An exclusive-right-to-sell label with different terms would raise a different fee question.
Answer: Under these stated terms, the owner-produced sale does not trigger that broker fee. A label alone is not a full contract audit.
A general role still has limits
A manager may handle routine rent collection and approved repairs, but the owner expressly withholds mortgage authority. No apparent authority, later ratification or separate instrument is established.
- The continuing role is commonly described as general agency.
- The actual grant excludes the questioned mortgage.
Answer: The general-agent label does not authorise that mortgage.
End the work without erasing the obligations
An Illinois buyer agreement expires. The broker still holds transaction money and qualifying confidential information.
- Expired authority is separate from remaining money and information.
- Section 15-30 preserves accounting and confidentiality, subject to its written-agreement qualification and other applicable law.
Answer: Account for entrusted money and property and protect qualifying confidences. Do not release disputed escrow simply because representation ended.
A blank form is not an Illinois exemption
An Illinois licensee with an executed listing agreement helps an unrepresented buyer on the seller’s behalf. The buyer asks for a blank offer form. No written no-agency notice has been provided.
- The current rule requires written nonrepresentation disclosure before that listing-side assistance.
- Calling the act ministerial does not restore the former exception to the designated-agency default.
Answer: Give the required written no-agency notice before the stated seller-side assistance. Do not imply that the requested form alone decides the relationship.
Dual consent has more than one step
One Illinois designated agent proposes to represent both the seller and buyer. Both clients have given prior informed written consent. The agent now prepares the transaction documents.
- Section 15-45 also requires specific written confirmation of prior consent; the statute says it should be obtained at offer or contract execution.
- When confirmation is included in another instrument, the parties must sign the instrument and initial the confirmation provision.
- The agent still cannot make prohibited negotiating recommendations or act in a prohibited ownership-party dual role.
Answer: Complete the required confirmation with the applicable formalities. Prior consent is necessary but does not remove every later safeguard or prohibition.
Mistakes to avoid
- Let the commission check choose the client. Trace the actual relationship and apply separate compensation rules.
- Apparent authority comes from the agent saying so. Trace the relevant appearance to the principal and check reasonable detrimental reliance.
- A private revocation automatically notifies everyone. Actual authority and third-party apparent authority require separate analysis.
- Ratification means the principal received something. Check knowledge and adoption; unknown benefits do not establish informed ratification.
- Any defect can be ratified. A contract beyond the principal’s legal power is a different problem.
- A listing grants unlimited power to sign. Read the actual scope and any separate power of attorney.
- OLDCAR replaces the Illinois statute. Use the mnemonic for recall, then apply the precise governing provision.
- Confidentiality means concealing every fact the seller dislikes. Required disclosure is not waived by calling a fact confidential.
- An open listing never needs writing. Apply state documentation requirements to nonexclusive agreements too.
- Consent makes every conflict permissible. A prohibition can remain even after disclosure and consent.
- Agency ends, so the agreement never mattered. Compensation, damages, accounting and confidentiality may remain.
- One practice percentage proves readiness. Use fresh questions, explain the alternatives and review weaknesses without treating this set as a prediction.
Check your understanding
These are original teaching questions, not recalled or predicted PSI questions. Answer first, then explain why the other choices fail.
1. A seller funds a fee for the broker who has a valid agreement representing the buyer. No relationship changes. Whom does that broker represent?
- The buyer
- The seller solely because the seller pays
- No one because third-party payment always prevents agency
- Both automatically
Show answer and explanation
Answer: A. The buyer
The stated representation identifies the buyer. In Illinois, payment or its promise is not determinative of agency; separate compensation requirements still apply.
2. A principal directly instructs an agent to perform a specified act. Which authority is being described?
- Apparent authority only
- Authority created solely by a third party
- Automatic universal authority
- Express actual authority
Show answer and explanation
Answer: D. Express actual authority
Express actual authority is directly granted by the principal. Apparent authority concerns a principal-created appearance to a third party.
3. An authorised management role includes routine tasks reasonably incidental to that role, with no contrary limitation. Which concept explains those actual powers?
- Implied actual authority
- Compensation-based authority
- Authority based only on a stranger’s belief
- An unlimited power to convey title
Show answer and explanation
Answer: A. Implied actual authority
Implied actual authority follows from the authorised role and circumstances. It is actual authority, not unlimited permission to do unrelated acts.
4. Which facts best support apparent authority in the stated ordinary agency framework?
- The agent privately claims unlimited power
- A logo is first displayed after the transaction
- A principal-created appearance produces reasonable detrimental reliance
- An unaffiliated person makes a guess
Show answer and explanation
Answer: C. A principal-created appearance produces reasonable detrimental reliance
Trace the appearance to the principal, then test reasonable belief and detrimental reliance at the relevant time. The agent cannot establish it solely by self-description.
5. A broker may market and present offers, while the seller expressly reserves acceptance. No other signing authority or relevant appearance is given. May the broker sign acceptance for the seller?
- Yes, because a licence overrides the limitation
- Yes, every listing is a power of attorney
- No, not merely because of the listing
- Yes, if the buyer pays enough
Show answer and explanation
Answer: C. No, not merely because of the listing
The supplied grant does not include acceptance. Marketing, presenting an offer and binding the seller are distinct acts.
6. A principal never learns of an unauthorised transaction. Does the principal’s failure to object, without more, establish informed ratification?
- Yes, silence always ratifies
- Yes, every transaction benefits someone
- Yes, if the agent keeps the paperwork
- No, the stated knowledge and adoption are missing
Show answer and explanation
Answer: D. No, the stated knowledge and adoption are missing
Ratification requires the relevant knowledge and adoption. Cove Management rejected ratification where the principal lacked knowledge of the lease; unknown events are not automatically affirmed.
7. A court has determined that the principal had no legal power to enter the contract, making it void from inception. Does ordinary ratification necessarily cure that defect?
- Yes, keeping any benefit cures every defect
- Yes, the agent’s belief controls
- Yes, if the contract uses the word agency
- No, that is different from an otherwise ratifiable unauthorised act
Show answer and explanation
Answer: D. No, that is different from an otherwise ratifiable unauthorised act
The Illinois Supreme Court’s 1550 MP Road decision rejected ratification, estoppel and apparent authority as a cure for the statutory lack of contracting power in that case. Do not generalise it to every missing document or unauthorised act.
8. A client directs conduct expressly stated to be unlawful. What does the obedience duty require?
- Ask the customer to carry it out
- Follow it privately
- Follow it if profitable
- Refuse the unlawful instruction
Show answer and explanation
Answer: D. Refuse the unlawful instruction
Obedience is to lawful instructions within the relationship. Loyalty does not require violating the law.
9. An Illinois seller privately shares a qualifying confidential minimum price. No consent or legal requirement to reveal it is given. Which duty most directly applies?
- Automatic public recording
- A duty to reduce the listing price
- Confidentiality
- A duty to publish every number
Show answer and explanation
Answer: C. Confidentiality
The stipulated negotiating confidence is protected. It differs from a property condition that the law requires to be disclosed.
10. An Illinois seller’s agent actually knows a latent material adverse physical fact not discoverable by a reasonably diligent inspection. What is owed to a prospective buyer customer?
- Disclosure only after title transfers
- Disclosure only if the seller agrees
- Timely disclosure of that fact
- Nothing, because there is no representation
Show answer and explanation
Answer: C. Timely disclosure of that fact
The question supplies the conditions in Section 15-25. The physical-fact duty is not a promise to discover every hidden defect or a right to conceal a known qualifying condition.
11. Which statement about a customer is most accurate?
- A customer can never have another agent
- No duties apply to customers
- A customer is always owed the same advocacy as a client
- A customer of one licensee can be represented by a different licensee
Show answer and explanation
Answer: D. A customer of one licensee can be represented by a different licensee
Client and customer status is relative to the particular relationship. Nonrepresentation by one licensee does not mean the person has no representative anywhere.
12. The owner expressly limits a manager to routine operations and excludes mortgaging. No other authority is established. What does the general-agent label do?
- Makes the manager a lawyer
- Overrides the exclusion
- It does not erase the stated limit
- Allows any sale of the owner’s assets
Show answer and explanation
Answer: C. It does not erase the stated limit
The scope of the actual grant controls. A continuing class of authorised business is different from unlimited power.
13. A national exercise expressly preserves an owner-sale exception in an exclusive-agency listing, with no other fee trigger. The owner independently finds the buyer. Which result follows?
- The broker acquires title
- The listing becomes a deed
- Every exclusive-agency label guarantees a full fee
- The stated exception applies
Show answer and explanation
Answer: D. The stated exception applies
Apply the expressly supplied compensation terms. A different agreement or an additional fee trigger could change the result.
14. Does calling an Illinois listing open or nonexclusive remove the current written brokerage-agreement requirement?
- Yes, if a customer asks for a blank form
- Yes, all open listings may be oral
- Yes, because PSI vocabulary overrides state law
- No, the agreement rule also reaches nonexclusive agreements
Show answer and explanation
Answer: D. No, the agreement rule also reaches nonexclusive agreements
Traditional national listing labels do not waive Illinois documentation rules. Apply the current written-agreement requirements and their timing.
15. A valid Illinois property power of attorney states no earlier ending event and otherwise qualifies under the Act. Does the principal’s later incapacity, by itself, necessarily end it?
- No, the statutory durability rule and instrument terms matter
- Yes, every agency instrument always ends then
- Yes, unless the agent becomes a lawyer
- No power can ever be revoked
Show answer and explanation
Answer: A. No, the statutory durability rule and instrument terms matter
Do not import a blanket ordinary-agency ending rule into a qualifying Illinois power. The statute provides continuity despite incapacity, subject to its terms and other applicable provisions; it is not unlimited or post-death authority.
16. What does attorney-in-fact identify?
- A guaranteed licensed attorney
- An automatic court appointee
- An agent acting under a power of attorney
- The property’s owner
Show answer and explanation
Answer: C. An agent acting under a power of attorney
Attorney-in-fact describes the agency role under the instrument. It does not itself establish a law licence or authority beyond the grant.
17. After private revocation of actual authority, an outsider reasonably and detrimentally relies on the principal’s unchanged appearance of authority, without notice or another legal barrier. Which issue remains?
- Payment as the sole test
- Apparent authority
- A new deed by implication
- Automatic universal agency
Show answer and explanation
Answer: B. Apparent authority
Actual revocation and the principal-created appearance toward the outsider require separate analysis. The facts expressly supply the necessary reliance conditions.
18. An Illinois agreement expires while the broker holds client money and qualifying confidential information. Which statement is sound?
- The broker may award the escrow to the broker
- The old agreement automatically renews forever
- Accounting and confidentiality can survive under the applicable law
- Every duty disappears
Show answer and explanation
Answer: C. Accounting and confidentiality can survive under the applicable law
Section 15-30 preserves accounting and confidentiality, with its opening written-agreement qualification and other law still relevant. Expiration does not authorise arbitrary escrow disbursement.
19. Two Illinois licensees in one brokerage are separately designated for buyer and seller. Neither individual represents both. What follows from the shared firm alone?
- Each is necessarily a dual agent
- Every client duty is waived
- Neither has any client
- It does not automatically make each individual a dual agent
Show answer and explanation
Answer: D. It does not automatically make each individual a dual agent
Identify the individual designated agents and actual relationships. Shared sponsorship alone does not turn each into the individual representing both adverse clients.
20. An Illinois seller’s designated agent assists an unrepresented buyer on the seller’s behalf under an executed listing agreement. What must precede that assistance under the stated rule?
- The buyer must pay the seller’s commission
- A verbal promise to remain neutral
- A closing disclosure only
- Written disclosure that the licensee is not the buyer’s agent
Show answer and explanation
Answer: D. Written disclosure that the licensee is not the buyer’s agent
Rule 1450.770(i)(1) requires the written nonrepresentation disclosure before the stated listing-side assistance. A ministerial label or blank form does not waive it.
21. Does the current Illinois designated-agency default contain the former ministerial-act exception?
- Yes; the customer may waive the statute by silence
- Yes; every blank form automatically creates non-agency
- Yes; greetings and closings are the only relevant events
- No; use the current statutory default and applicable written relationship
Show answer and explanation
Answer: D. No; use the current statutory default and applicable written relationship
Section 15-10 no longer contains that former exception. Working with a consumer is subject to the designated-agency default unless the required written agreement establishes another permitted relationship; this is not a claim that every greeting alone forms representation.
22. An Illinois licensee proposes individual dual representation. Only the seller has given informed written consent. May the licensee begin acting for both?
- No; prior informed written consent is required from all clients
- Yes, if the buyer agrees at closing
- Yes, if the commission is split equally
- Yes, because the seller owns the property
Show answer and explanation
Answer: A. No; prior informed written consent is required from all clients
The informed written consent must come from every affected client before the licensee acts as dual agent. A buyer agreement and the separate statutory safeguards also remain relevant.
23. Required Illinois transaction confirmation is embedded in another instrument. Which formalities does Section 15-45(c) specify?
- A signature by only the agent
- The parties sign the instrument and initial the confirmation provision
- Only the seller initials the price
- The licensee’s oral announcement alone
Show answer and explanation
Answer: B. The parties sign the instrument and initial the confirmation provision
Specific written confirmation of prior dual consent is mandatory. The statute says it should be obtained at offer or contract execution; an embedded provision requires both the instrument signatures and the provision initials.
24. An Illinois licensee’s ownership-interest entity is the buyer. Can informed consent alone permit that licensee to serve as dual agent?
- Yes, if the company pays no fee
- Yes, if the interest is under 1%
- Yes, if the seller signs twice
- No; the prohibited ownership-party dual role is not cured by consent
Show answer and explanation
Answer: D. No; the prohibited ownership-party dual role is not cured by consent
The ownership prohibition is distinct from disclosure or consent requirements. Do not import a separate greater-than-1% referral-disclosure threshold into this dual-agency bar.
Common questions
How many national agency questions are on the Illinois broker exam?
The PSI outline effective June 24, 2026 assigns 13 of the 100 scored national broker questions to the whole Agency domain. That allocation is not a promise that any particular subtopic or question on this page will appear.
What should I practise in the national Agency domain?
Practise relationship formation, listing and buyer or tenant representation agreements, other brokerage relationships, powers of attorney, termination, client and customer duties, representation disclosures and conflicts or self-interest. Keep state-specific relationship and documentation rules separate from national vocabulary.
What does OLDCAR stand for in real estate?
Obedience to lawful instructions, loyalty, disclosure, confidentiality, accounting and reasonable care. It is a memory aid for traditional client duties, not a substitute for every statutory detail. It does not authorise illegal obedience or automatically give a customer the client’s advocacy.
What is the difference between express, implied and apparent authority?
Express and implied authority are forms of actual authority. A direct grant is express; authority supported by the authorised role and circumstances is implied. Apparent authority instead concerns appearances attributable to the principal and reasonable detrimental reliance by the third party. An agent’s unsupported statement alone is insufficient.
Does apparent authority continue after an agent is fired?
It can remain an issue even when actual authority ends. Check what the principal communicated to the relevant outsider, whether that outsider had notice, whether the belief and detrimental reliance were reasonable, and any other legal barrier. There is no universal rule that a private firing either preserves or ends every outsider’s claim.
Can ratification cure an unauthorised act?
An otherwise ratifiable act can be adopted with the relevant knowledge and intent, sometimes shown by informed acceptance of benefits. A principal who did not know of a transaction has not automatically ratified it. Do not assume ratification cures a contract that the principal lacked legal power to enter; the 2019 Illinois Supreme Court decision in 1550 MP Road illustrates that separate limit.
Does a listing let the broker sign for the owner?
Not automatically. Read the scope of authority and any separate valid instrument. Authority to market, show or present offers is different from authority to accept a purchase contract, sign a deed or grant a mortgage. A special- or general-agent label does not replace that analysis.
Is an attorney-in-fact the same as an attorney-at-law?
No. An attorney-in-fact is an agent under a power of attorney and need not be a licensed lawyer. The instrument and applicable law determine the powers, limits and duration. Recording an instrument does not create a power that it never granted.
Can I infer representation from who pays the commission?
No. Illinois Section 15-40 says payment or its promise is not determinative of agency. A seller-funded buyer-broker fee can coexist with buyer representation. Compensation policy, amount, source disclosures and agreement requirements remain separate issues.
Does an exclusive listing always guarantee a commission?
Read the actual compensation trigger, exceptions and conditions. Traditional exclusive-right-to-sell and exclusive-agency labels help identify an owner-sale distinction, but do not resolve every fee, protection-period, breach or termination question. The listing examples here expressly supply their terms rather than determine a real agreement’s enforceability.
Does every agency end when the principal becomes incapacitated?
No. The instrument, relationship and law matter. A qualifying Illinois power of attorney can continue despite later incapacity under Section 2-5, subject to its terms and other applicable provisions. Do not treat a durable power, an individual brokerage appointment and an agreement with a continuing company as identical. A default durable property power does not simply continue after death.
What survives the end of an Illinois brokerage agreement?
Section 15-30 addresses accounting for transaction money and property and confidentiality after termination, expiration or performance, with an opening written-agreement qualification. Other agreement, escrow, record and compensation requirements can also matter. That qualification is not a blanket licence to waive legal duties or conceal required facts.
How should I review a missed agency question?
Write down the represented person, source and limit of authority, relevant duty, jurisdiction and timing. Then explain what fact would make the closest wrong answer correct. Use unfamiliar questions later to test the rule again; memorising this set or reaching a particular percentage is not proof of readiness.
Are these official PSI questions?
No. They are original teaching scenarios checked against the identified public outline and primary sources. They are not recalled, predicted or endorsed PSI items. The review date describes this page’s factual check, not a claim that every cited rule changed in October 2026.
Does ministerial help automatically mean no agency in Illinois?
No. The former ministerial-act exception is not in the current Section 15-10 default. Apply the written relationship and conduct under Illinois law. For a listing licensee with an executed seller agreement, Rule 1450.770(i)(1) permits the stated seller-side assistance to an unrepresented buyer after written nonrepresentation disclosure. A blank form alone is not an exemption, and an initial greeting alone does not establish every element of representation.
When do Illinois agency notices and brokerage agreements have to be in writing?
These are different requirements. Designated-agency identification is due no later than beginning the designated work. No-agency notice must be timed to prevent confidential disclosure and never later than offer preparation. Under the current agreement rule, seller or owner agreements precede marketing or listing; buyer or tenant agreements precede or follow as soon as reasonably practical after licensed assistance. The specific listing-side notice and dual-agency requirements can demand earlier action; the general buyer wording is not permission to delay those safeguards.
What are the Illinois dual-agency consent and confirmation steps?
Every client must give prior informed written consent before the licensee acts as dual agent. Specific written transaction confirmation of that consent is also required. Section 15-45 says confirmation should be obtained when the clients execute an offer or contract; if it is embedded in another instrument, the clients must sign that instrument and initial the confirmation provision. Consent does not permit prohibited negotiating advice or the ownership-party dual role. Read the Illinois-specific guide for the remaining statutory details.
Are national agency concepts identical to Illinois brokerage law?
No. Illinois Article 15 supplies a statutory brokerage framework, including designated agency and its particular duties and disclosures. Traditional vocabulary and older California DRE or NAR definitions help with national concepts; they do not import California oral-listing rules, firm-wide dual-agency assumptions, current MLS practices or another state’s facilitator exemptions into Illinois. This practice page does not decide a real contract’s enforceability or complete a case-law citator review.
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Official sources and scope
The October 2026 review uses the public PSI outline, identified Illinois statutes and rules, and selected published opinions. Older California DRE and NAR publications support only traditional national terminology, not current Illinois compliance or 2026 MLS policy. Primary-source editions and the distinction between fresh readings and explicit reuse of earlier readings are recorded in the audit. This page is not a complete case-law, contract or power-of-attorney review.
- PSI Illinois Candidate Information Booklet: National VI Agency
- 225 ILCS 454/15-5: Illinois statutory brokerage framework
- 225 ILCS 454/15-10: designated-agency default
- 225 ILCS 454/15-15: client duties and competing clients
- 225 ILCS 454/15-25: customer honesty and known latent defects
- 225 ILCS 454/15-35: agency and non-agency notice
- 225 ILCS 454/15-50: written terms, designation and consumer remedies
- 225 ILCS 454/15-40: compensation does not determine agency
- 225 ILCS 454/15-45: prior dual consent, confirmation and limits
- 68 Ill. Adm. Code 1450.770: agreements and assistance timing
- 225 ILCS 454/15-30: duties after termination
- California DRE chapter 10: traditional agency and listing vocabulary
- NAR handbook: traditional listing-type definitions
- 755 ILCS 45/2-5: POA duration and incapacity
- California DRE Reference Book, Chapter 10: general agency termination concepts
- 1550 MP Road LLC v. Teamsters Local Union No. 700, 2019 IL 123046: apparent authority and its limits
- Jameson Realty Group v. Kostiner (2004): premature listing termination and the particular damages clause
- Cove Management v. AFLAC, 2013 IL App (1st) 120884
This is exam preparation, not advice for a specific transaction. State law and the applicable facts control. Our editorial and corrections process explains how to report an issue.