This is the final column in a three-part series on pending HOA legislation in California.
The final piece of our 2025 legislative review discusses Assembly Bill 739, which proposes to require HOA managers to be licensed as real estate brokers.
Seven states currently require manager licensing: Alaska, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Nevada and Virginia.
California has an optional designation called “certified common interest development manager” (Business and Professions Code Sections 11500-11506), which requires a certain amount of specific education for residential HOA managers to claim the label.
Presently, to manage associations in California, managers need only convince the HOA client to hire them – there is no minimum standard or qualification required.
AB 739, authored by Assemblymember Corey Jackson of the Inland Empire, proposes to require California HOA managers hold a real estate broker license. The bill in its present form is somewhat embryonic, simply proposing to add a section Civil Code Section 5378, stating “A managing agent of a common interest development shall hold a real estate broker license issued by the state.”
The bill has been deemed a “two-year bill,” meaning that 2025 will be used to flesh out the proposal before the bill is submitted for consideration in 2026.
The California Association of Realtors has expressed support for the idea of manager licensing by the Department of Real Estate. The two primary organizations with HOA manager membership, Community Associations Institute and California Association of Community Managers, are presently opposed to licensing of managers.
Dawn Bauman, chief strategy officer of CAI, argues the answer is not licensing, but competency, and that “licensing programs, when poorly aligned with a profession’s actual competencies, can create unnecessary barriers to entry, reduce competition, and stifle innovation.”
The Department of Real Estate would likely have to establish a completely new division to oversee HOA manager licensing, which could result in significant staffing and budgetary requirements.
Also, the competency required for someone to manage HOAs is very different than the expertise brokers must demonstrate. An initial training program and examination would be required, along with ongoing continuing education (similar to brokers and salespersons, but presumably on different topic material).
California’s more than 51,000 HOAs deserve some assurance of minimum manager competency, and there should be a system in place to discipline or ban bad managers. Licensing could help with that, but it will be hard to develop a “one size fits all” approach.
Bauman said that while CAI does not favor manager licensing as the initial approach, her organization has already played a “pivotal role in shaping licensing programs in Connecticut, Nevada, Virginia and Illinois.”
She noted that manager competency by itself is not the only issue- a reasonable system to receive and filter homeowner complaints is also necessary. In a licensing system, one could anticipate that homeowners angry about rule enforcement actions, assessment delinquencies, or even disagreements with the board could result in a mass of unjustified complaints which could obscure the valid ones.
The process of creating a beneficial and effective manager licensing system may well require a partnership between the Legislature, CAR, the Department of Real Estate, and other industry stakeholders such as CAI. It may take more than two years to develop a detailed system and to allow DRE time to prepare to institute such a major change for California HOAs.
HOA Homefront will monitor major developments on this issue.
Kelly G. Richardson CCAL is a member of the College of Community Association Lawyers and Partner of Richardson Ober LLP, a California law firm known for community association advice. Send questions to Kelly@roattorneys.com
Richardson, Esq. is a fellow of the College of Community Association Lawyers and partner of Richardson Ober LLP, a California law firm known for community association advice. Submit column questions to kelly@roattorneys.com. Past columns at www.HOAHomefront.com.
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