- Official section
- National VI.B.1 and VI.B.2
- Broker weight
- Part of 13% of the national portion
- Expected scored items
- The current PSI broker outline assigns about 13 of 100 scored national items to Agency
National Agent Duties guide
Agent duties to clients and customers
The fastest way to answer a duty question is to classify the person first. A client receives lawful advocacy and fiduciary protection. A customer receives no advocacy from that licensee but still deserves honest, careful, legally compliant service. The correct duty follows the relationship.
Last updated: August 1, 2026
What does this exam area cover?
Short answer: An agent owes a client loyalty, lawful obedience, disclosure, confidentiality, accounting, reasonable care and skill, performance of the agreement, and compliance with law. A customer is not owed the agent's advocacy or confidential strategic advice, but is owed honest and good-faith dealing, competent performance of any services provided, accurate information, and required material-fact disclosures. Illinois Section 15-15 states the client duties, Section 15-25 protects customers, and Section 15-30 carries accounting and confidentiality beyond termination.
This guide follows the national outline effective June 24, 2026 and then applies the current Illinois Article 15 rules. The duties owed to clients and customers differ among states, especially for disclosure, investigation, confidentiality, and non-agency services. Illinois sources were checked through August 1, 2026. This is exam preparation, not a substitute for legal advice or sponsoring-broker supervision.
What is on the official outline?
- Topic
- Identify client and customer
- What to know
- Consumer, principal, client, customer, represented party, unrepresented party, designated agent, disclosure, written agreement, seller, landlord, buyer, tenant, opposing party, and compensation source
- Best exam move
- Name the represented person before assigning loyalty, and never use payment source as the relationship test.
- Topic
- Loyalty
- What to know
- Client best interest, undivided loyalty, self-dealing, secret profit, conflict, competing client, personal interest, informed consent, dual agency, negotiating position, opportunity, and disclosure
- Best exam move
- Choose the lawful action that advances the client's interest without creating an undisclosed conflict or harming another client.
- Topic
- Lawful obedience
- What to know
- Specific direction, agreement scope, listing price, showing instruction, offer terms, lawful objective, illegal direction, discrimination, concealment, false statement, unauthorized practice, refusal, documentation, and supervision
- Best exam move
- Follow lawful instructions within authority and refuse instructions that conflict with law or professional duty.
- Topic
- Disclosure to the client
- What to know
- Material transaction fact, offer, counteroffer, buyer qualification, property information, conflict, compensation, relationship, adverse interest, actual knowledge, timing, confidentiality of another, and decision-making
- Best exam move
- Tell the client material information the agent is allowed and required to reveal so the client can make an informed decision.
- Topic
- Confidentiality
- What to know
- Motivation, urgency, maximum price, minimum price, financing limit, family reason, business strategy, client instruction, reasonable expectation, permission, law, court order, public information, property condition, duration, and termination
- Best exam move
- Protect negotiating and personal information, but do not turn confidentiality into permission to conceal a legally disclosable defect.
- Topic
- Accounting
- What to know
- Earnest money, security deposit, rent, keys, documents, personal property, receipt, custody, trust account, timely delivery, ledger, commingling, conversion, disbursement, reconciliation, and return
- Best exam move
- Track every item received for the client or transaction and place money only where law and authority permit.
- Topic
- Reasonable care and skill
- What to know
- Competence, diligence, deadlines, accurate forms, market information, verification, referral, scope of license, inspection limit, legal question, tax question, financing, communication, supervision, and documentation
- Best exam move
- Perform licensed work competently and refer matters beyond the licensee's training or legal scope.
- Topic
- Performance and communication
- What to know
- Brokerage agreement, promised service, timely response, marketing plan, property search, showings, offer presentation, negotiation, notice, contingency, client question, status update, accessibility, and records
- Best exam move
- Use both the agreement and statutory minimum duties; a limited fee does not excuse a promised or mandatory service.
- Topic
- Honesty and good faith
- What to know
- Customer, truthful statement, fair dealing, no deception, no omission that makes statement misleading, identity, representation status, property fact, offer process, no guarantee, documentation, and correction
- Best exam move
- A customer is not owed advocacy, but the licensee cannot mislead the customer to benefit the client.
- Topic
- Accurate information
- What to know
- Negligent false information, knowing false information, source attribution, seller statement, public record, square footage, zoning, school, tax, permit, boundary, material fact, correction, and verification
- Best exam move
- Do not repeat a material claim carelessly; verify within professional scope or state the reliable source and limits.
- Topic
- Material facts and latent defects
- What to know
- Material, adverse, physical condition, actual knowledge, latent, patent, reasonably diligent inspection, discover, disclose, investigate, seller report, red flag, expert inspection, stigma, and confidential information
- Best exam move
- Separate the duty to disclose what is actually known from a duty to investigate or discover what is unknown.
- Topic
- Ministerial and neutral assistance
- What to know
- Blank form, factual explanation, property access, scheduling, document delivery, public information, clerical help, customer, no-agency notice, no strategic advice, no advocacy, and representation boundary
- Best exam move
- Provide permitted transaction help without suggesting the unrepresented person's negotiating position or pretending to be that person's advocate.
- Topic
- Offer handling
- What to know
- Prompt presentation, all offers, counteroffer, written waiver, seller client, buyer client, contemporaneous offers, confidentiality, fair process, objective terms, decision authority, acknowledgment, and record
- Best exam move
- Deliver offers as required, give the client the facts needed to decide, and never choose the winning offer for the principal.
- Topic
- Fair housing and civil rights
- What to know
- Protected class, source of income, steering, discriminatory instruction, refusal, showing, marketing, qualification, accommodation, modification, retaliation, consistent criteria, client direction, and legal compliance
- Best exam move
- Reject a discriminatory client instruction because obedience stops where illegality begins.
- Topic
- Illinois client duties
- What to know
- 225 ILCS 454/15-15, perform agreement, acceptable price or terms, timely offers, actual knowledge, material transaction facts, account, lawful directions, best interests, reasonable skill and care, confidentiality, fair housing, and civil rights
- Best exam move
- Use the statute's complete client list rather than a shortened mnemonic when the choices are close.
- Topic
- Illinois customer duties
- What to know
- 225 ILCS 454/15-25, honesty, good faith, reasonable skill and care, negligent false information, knowing false information, latent material adverse physical fact, actual knowledge, reasonably diligent inspection, no investigation duty, and unrepresented consumer
- Best exam move
- Give the customer truthful competent service and required known physical-fact disclosure without switching into client advocacy.
- Topic
- Illinois duties after termination
- What to know
- 225 ILCS 454/15-30, termination, expiration, completed performance, money, property, accounting, confidential information, written agreement, continuing duty, permission, legal requirement, and records
- Best exam move
- Carry accounting and confidentiality forward after active representation ends.
Which distinctions produce the most mistakes?
- Terms
- Client vs. customer
- Difference
- A client is represented and receives lawful advocacy. A customer is unrepresented by that licensee but receives statutory and general protections.
- Question cue
- Promote interests versus assist honestly without advocacy.
- Terms
- Loyalty vs. obedience
- Difference
- Loyalty directs the agent toward the client's lawful best interests. Obedience requires following the client's lawful instructions within authority.
- Question cue
- Whose interests guide conduct versus whose lawful directions control the act.
- Terms
- Disclosure vs. confidentiality
- Difference
- Disclosure gives the client material information needed for decisions. Confidentiality protects the client's private information from unauthorized release.
- Question cue
- Tell the client versus protect information about the client.
- Terms
- Confidential fact vs. material physical fact
- Difference
- A negotiating position may be confidential. A known property-condition fact required by law is not hidden through client confidentiality.
- Question cue
- Bottom line versus latent defect.
- Terms
- Accounting vs. recordkeeping
- Difference
- Accounting concerns custody, tracking, and proper delivery of money or property. Recordkeeping concerns preserving the transaction file for the required period.
- Question cue
- Handle entrusted item correctly versus retain evidence of the transaction.
- Terms
- Actual knowledge vs. duty to discover
- Difference
- Actual knowledge concerns facts the licensee really knows. A duty to discover would require investigation for unknown facts. Illinois Article 15 does not impose a broad latent-defect discovery duty through these sections.
- Question cue
- Known fact versus hidden condition not yet found.
- Terms
- Latent defect vs. patent condition
- Difference
- A latent defect is not readily observable through reasonably diligent inspection. A patent condition is apparent or discoverable through such inspection.
- Question cue
- Hidden condition versus visible or readily discoverable condition.
- Terms
- Customer assistance vs. customer advocacy
- Difference
- A licensee may provide permitted forms, facts, access, and delivery. Recommending a customer's bargaining position or promoting that customer's interests is advocacy.
- Question cue
- Help complete the process versus advise how to win the negotiation.
- Terms
- Lawful instruction vs. illegal instruction
- Difference
- An agent follows a lawful instruction within the relationship. An instruction to discriminate, misrepresent, conceal, or forge must be refused.
- Question cue
- Obedience applies only inside the law.
- Terms
- Reasonable care vs. professional guarantee
- Difference
- Reasonable care requires competent performance under the circumstances. It does not make a broker an insurer of price, condition, financing, appraisal, inspection, or closing.
- Question cue
- Competent process versus promised outcome.
How do you solve a client-or-customer duty question?
- Identify whom the licensee represents and label every other consumer as customer or third party.
- Name the exact act at issue, such as advice, disclosure, money handling, offer delivery, or information sharing.
- Apply the broader client duties only to the represented person.
- Apply honesty, care, accurate-information, and required material-fact duties to the customer.
- Test whether a client instruction is lawful and within the agreement and agent's authority.
- Separate confidential negotiating facts from property facts the law requires disclosed.
- Use actual knowledge and investigation language exactly as the jurisdiction states it.
- Choose the action that protects the client without misleading or unlawfully harming the customer.
- Issue
- Advocacy
- Client
- Promote lawful best interests
- Customer
- No advocacy from that licensee
- Issue
- Loyalty
- Client
- Owed within the agency relationship
- Customer
- Not owed as a fiduciary duty
- Issue
- Instructions
- Client
- Follow lawful directions in scope
- Customer
- No right to direct the other party's agent
- Issue
- Honesty
- Client
- Owed
- Customer
- Owed
- Issue
- Care in services
- Client
- Reasonable skill and care
- Customer
- Reasonable skill and care for services provided
- Issue
- Confidential strategy
- Client
- Protected subject to law
- Customer
- Do not invite without representation; no advocacy promise
- Issue
- Known material facts
- Client
- Disclose as client law requires
- Customer
- Disclose as customer law requires
- Issue
- Money or property
- Client
- Account as required
- Customer
- Handle transaction property lawfully and accurately
How do the rules work in scenarios?
The seller asks the agent to hide the leak
Scenario: A seller tells the listing agent not to reveal a recurring concealed roof leak that the agent actually knows about because the buyer should have an inspection.
- Obedience applies only to lawful instructions.
- A known latent material adverse physical fact can trigger disclosure duties to the buyer customer.
- Confidentiality does not transform a property-condition fact into protected negotiating strategy.
Answer: The agent must refuse concealment and follow the governing disclosure law and brokerage procedures.
The listing agent helps an unrepresented buyer
Scenario: After giving the required no-agency notice, a seller's agent supplies a blank offer form and points the buyer to public tax information. The buyer asks what price will beat another offer.
- The buyer is a customer, not the seller's agent's client.
- Neutral form and factual help may be allowed without advocacy.
- Recommending the buyer's competitive price would cross toward negotiating advice against the seller client.
Answer: Provide permitted neutral assistance, but do not advise the customer what to offer against the client.
The buyer's maximum remains confidential
Scenario: A buyer tells the buyer's agent that the buyer can pay $40,000 above the current offer. The seller's agent asks whether there is room to increase.
- The maximum price is negotiating information received from the client.
- Loyalty and confidentiality protect it from unauthorized disclosure.
- The buyer's agent can convey an authorized offer or counteroffer without revealing the undisclosed ceiling.
Answer: Do not disclose the maximum unless the buyer authorizes it or law requires disclosure.
A discriminatory instruction must be refused
Scenario: A landlord client tells the listing agent not to show the unit to applicants with children and asks the agent to invent an income reason for each refusal.
- Familial status discrimination is not a lawful client objective under applicable fair housing law.
- Obedience never requires unlawful conduct.
- Inventing reasons would also violate honesty and accurate-information duties.
Answer: Refuse the instruction, explain the legal boundary, document the issue, and follow supervising-broker procedures.
Actual knowledge is not a license to ignore a red flag
Scenario: An Illinois broker notices fresh paint over a large recurring water stain and receives conflicting statements from the seller. The broker tells the buyer that no water problem exists without checking the file.
- Article 15 does not make the broker a technical inspector or impose a broad duty to discover latent defects.
- It also does not permit negligent or knowingly false information to a customer.
- A categorical assurance unsupported by the known red flag creates an accuracy problem.
Answer: Do not make the assurance. Clarify known information, follow disclosure duties, and recommend the appropriate inspection or expert review.
Termination does not free confidential information
Scenario: After an Illinois listing expires, the former agent tells a prospective buyer that the seller is divorcing and would have accepted far below list price.
- The information concerns the former client's motivation and negotiating position.
- Illinois Section 15-30 preserves confidentiality after expiration unless an applicable exception exists.
- The end of marketing authority does not make the information public.
Answer: The former agent must continue protecting the confidential information.
What are the common exam traps?
- Trap
- A customer is owed no duties.
- Correction
- A customer receives no client advocacy but remains entitled to honesty, competent service, accurate information, and required disclosures.
- Trap
- Loyalty lets an agent mislead the other party.
- Correction
- Client advocacy stays inside the law. It never excuses false statements, unlawful concealment, or bad-faith conduct.
- Trap
- Obedience means follow every client demand.
- Correction
- Only lawful instructions within authority are obeyed. Discriminatory or deceptive directions must be refused.
- Trap
- Disclosure requires sharing the client's bottom line.
- Correction
- A client's confidential maximum or minimum is ordinarily protected. Convey authorized terms without volunteering the private limit.
- Trap
- Confidentiality can hide a known material physical defect.
- Correction
- Property facts subject to mandatory disclosure cannot be concealed as client confidences.
- Trap
- Reasonable care guarantees a successful closing.
- Correction
- It requires competent practice, not a guaranteed appraisal, inspection, loan, price, or closing outcome.
- Trap
- Accounting applies only to cash.
- Correction
- Accounting reaches money and other property, including keys, documents, checks, and items entrusted through the transaction.
- Trap
- A broker must personally answer every legal, tax, and structural question.
- Correction
- Reasonable care includes recognizing scope limits and referring the consumer to the proper attorney, tax professional, inspector, engineer, or other expert.
- Trap
- Repeating the seller's statement can never create liability.
- Correction
- Do not pass along material information negligently or knowingly falsely. Source attribution does not cure known falsity or careless assurance.
- Trap
- A latent-fact disclosure duty automatically requires destructive investigation.
- Correction
- Illinois customer duties focus on actually known latent material adverse physical facts and do not impose a general discovery duty through Section 15-25.
- Trap
- Giving a customer a form creates full agency.
- Correction
- Permitted ministerial assistance can occur without representation when the relationship is properly disclosed and advocacy boundaries are maintained.
- Trap
- Every client duty ends at expiration.
- Correction
- Illinois preserves accounting and confidentiality by default after termination, expiration, or completed performance.
Can you answer these original practice questions?
These questions are original study items aligned to the published outline. They are not copied, recalled, or predicted PSI questions.
1. A seller instructs a listing agent to conceal a known latent material defect. Which duty controls?
- A. Obey because every client instruction is binding
- B. Refuse because obedience is limited to lawful instructions
- C. Conceal because loyalty eliminates disclosure duties
- D. Transfer the defect to the customer
Show answer and explanation
Answer: B
An agent obeys lawful instructions only. Loyalty and confidentiality do not authorize concealment of a fact the law requires disclosed.
2. Which service may a seller's agent most safely provide to an unrepresented buyer customer after proper disclosure?
- A. Reveal the seller's minimum price
- B. Recommend the exact offer needed to beat competitors
- C. Provide a blank form and factual public information
- D. Promise to put the buyer's interest first
Show answer and explanation
Answer: C
Neutral or ministerial assistance can be provided without advocacy. The other choices compromise the seller relationship or create false buyer expectations.
3. Which fact is most likely confidential client information?
- A. A visible hole in the roof
- B. The buyer's undisclosed maximum price
- C. The recorded property tax amount
- D. The property's street address
Show answer and explanation
Answer: B
An undisclosed maximum is negotiating strategy received from the client. Public and visible property information is different.
4. Under Illinois Section 15-25, which fact must a licensee disclose to a customer when actually known?
- A. A latent material adverse physical fact not discoverable by reasonably diligent inspection
- B. The client's confidential bottom line
- C. Every neighborhood rumor
- D. A hidden condition the licensee does not know exists
Show answer and explanation
Answer: A
The Illinois customer rule targets actually known latent material adverse facts about physical condition that a reasonably diligent inspection would not reveal.
5. Which Illinois duty ordinarily survives termination of a brokerage agreement?
- A. Continuing to advertise without authority
- B. Setting the former client's price
- C. Accounting for transaction money and property
- D. Accepting new offers for the former client
Show answer and explanation
Answer: C
Section 15-30 preserves accounting and confidentiality by default after the relationship ends.
How should you study this area?
- Session
- Session 1
- Focus
- Classify client and customer
- Proof you are ready
- Label every consumer correctly in 15 seller, landlord, buyer, and tenant scenarios.
- Session
- Session 2
- Focus
- Master client duties
- Proof you are ready
- Explain loyalty, lawful obedience, disclosure, confidentiality, accounting, and reasonable care with one original example each.
- Session
- Session 3
- Focus
- Master customer protection
- Proof you are ready
- Separate honest assistance from advocacy and solve ten material-information questions.
- Session
- Session 4
- Focus
- Resolve duty conflicts
- Proof you are ready
- Work through confidentiality versus disclosure and obedience versus legality without using a mnemonic alone.
- Session
- Session 5
- Focus
- Apply Illinois Article 15
- Proof you are ready
- State the client, customer, and post-termination rules with the correct actual-knowledge and latent-fact limits.
- Session
- Session 6
- Focus
- Complete a mixed duty set
- Proof you are ready
- Score at least 90% and explain each answer by relationship, duty, knowledge standard, and required action.
Do not count recognition as mastery. Close the notes and explain the rule, apply it to a new fact pattern, and identify why each distractor fails.
Practice the topic in Pass Illinois
From concept to decision
Drill this topic, then review the explanation
Pass Illinois gives you original national and Illinois questions, topic-by-topic study, clear explanations, timed practice, flashcards, progress tracking, and Math Coach. Start free, find the weak distinction, and focus the next session there.
Questions students ask about Agent Duties to Clients and Customers
What duties does a real estate agent owe a client?
The classic national duties are loyalty, lawful obedience, disclosure, confidentiality, accounting, and reasonable care and skill. The agent must also perform the representation agreement and comply with governing law. Exact wording, limits, and additional duties vary by state.
What duties does a licensee owe a customer?
A customer receives no client advocacy from that licensee, but is still owed duties imposed by law, commonly including honesty, good faith, reasonable care in services provided, accurate information, and disclosure of material facts that must be revealed. A customer is unrepresented, not unprotected.
What is the difference between loyalty and honesty?
Loyalty requires an agent to promote the client's lawful interests above competing interests within the relationship. Honesty requires truthful dealing and applies beyond clients. A seller's agent can be honest with a buyer customer without advocating the buyer's price or strategy.
Must an agent obey every client instruction?
No. Obedience is limited to lawful instructions within the agency and agreement. An agent must refuse directions involving discrimination, concealment of a fact that law requires disclosed, false advertising, forged signatures, or other unlawful conduct.
Can a seller's agent tell a buyer the seller's lowest price?
Not without the seller client's permission or another legal basis. A seller's bottom line is ordinarily confidential negotiating information. The agent may present the seller's stated counteroffer, but cannot volunteer the client's undisclosed minimum.
Can confidentiality hide a property defect?
No when the law requires disclosure. Client confidentiality does not authorize misrepresentation or concealment of a material physical fact that must be disclosed. Illinois also excludes material information about a property's physical condition from its statutory definition of confidential information.
What material facts must an Illinois client representative disclose?
Section 15-15 requires disclosure to the client of material facts concerning the transaction that the licensee actually knows, unless the information is confidential. The licensee does not have a statutory duty under that subsection to discover latent defects.
What physical facts must an Illinois licensee disclose to a customer?
Section 15-25 requires disclosure to a customer of latent material adverse facts about the physical condition of the property that the licensee actually knows and that a reasonably diligent inspection would not discover. The licensee must not negligently or knowingly give false information.
Which Illinois duties survive termination?
Unless a written agreement provides otherwise, Section 15-30 preserves accounting for transaction money and property and confidentiality after termination, expiration, or completed performance.
Are these official PSI broker exam questions?
No. They are original questions aligned to the national Agent Duties outline effective June 24, 2026. Illinois Article 15 and current rules were reviewed through August 1, 2026.
Primary sources
- PSI Illinois Candidate Information Booklet dated June 24, 2026
- 225 ILCS 454/15-15, duties to Illinois clients
- 225 ILCS 454/15-25, duties to Illinois customers
- 225 ILCS 454/15-30, duties after termination
- 225 ILCS 454/1-10, client, customer, and confidential information definitions
- 68 Ill. Adm. Code 1450.800, confidential information
- IDFPR 6-hour Core Curriculum, agency duties
The current official outline controls the tested scope. Statutes, regulations, and official agency materials control when a general study rule and a jurisdiction-specific rule differ.
Editorial status
Checked against primary sources
The Pass Illinois editorial team last checked this guide on August 1, 2026. Every practice question is an original study item, and the source links above let you verify the rules that support the lesson.