Jamaica’s Real Estate Licence Is About to Get Harder to Keep. Here’s What It Takes to Get One

KINGSTON, Jamaica — For almost four decades, the path to selling property legally in Jamaica has been the same: take the course, pass the examination, get vetted, find a licensed dealer to work under and pay your fee every year. That path is about to get steeper at the far end.

From the 2027/2028 licensing period, the Real Estate Board (REB) says every practitioner will need 10 credits of continuing professional development a year to renew a licence. At the same time the Board is drafting a new Code of Ethical Conduct to replace rules written in 1998, and Parliament is weighing a gated-communities law that would hand the regulator a whole new set of disputes to hear.

For the hundreds of Jamaicans who sign up each year hoping to become a “realtor”, the message is plain. Passing the exam is no longer the finish line. It is the entry ticket.

Born out of a J$6.33 million scandal

The licence exists because, in the 1970s, a lot of Jamaicans lost their savings.

According to the Board’s own history, a Ministry of Finance and Planning review in 1975 found that 2,400 people had paid J$6.33 million in deposits to 63 developers for land and houses that were never delivered. In the money of the day, that was a fortune.

Lawmakers had been circling the problem since a first draft bill in 1969. In 1973 a commission chaired by Sir Herbert Duffus began examining the industry, and its 1976 interim report blamed failed housing schemes on developers’ inexperience and, in some cases, dishonesty. It called for strict legal control of developers and salesmen.

It still took more than a decade. Consultants drafted a bill in 1980, an interim board chaired by the Hon. Ewart Forrest was appointed in 1982, and on 24 July 1987 the Governor General signed the Real Estate (Dealers and Developers) Act, Act 18 of 1987. An eleven-member Real Estate Board was appointed that October, and the Act came into force on 1 September 1988.

The Act gave the Board power to register and license dealers and salesmen, to set examinations, and to supervise land sold in development schemes. Thirty-eight years later, that is still the backbone of the system.

What it takes today, by the numbers

Since 2016 training has run through the Board’s Real Estate Training Institute (RETI), launched that February to take over pre-licensing and continuing education. Before then, the salesman course was offered through the University of Technology, Jamaica.

Based on the Board’s published course and registration pages, a would-be salesperson today faces:

• Entry: five CSEC subjects, including English Language and Mathematics (grades I to III), or GCE O-level equivalents. Licensed agents from overseas can qualify with a certified copy of their foreign licence.
• The course: eight modules over 130 hours, covering Jamaican real estate law, agency practice, and built-environment topics such as construction, planning and valuation. The listed fee is J$100,000, up from the J$77,000 quoted for a weekend cohort in early 2024.
• The examination: sat about eight weeks after classes end. In 2024 RETI’s principal, Dr Tina Beale, told the Jamaica Observer it was a 100-question multiple-choice paper, with three resits allowed at J$5,000 each.
• Vetting: a “fit and proper” assessment, three reference letters, a police report, and a receipt from the Office of the Supervisor of Insolvency showing no bankruptcy.
• Fees: a J$9,000 application fee and a J$22,000 licence, renewed every year.
• An employer: a salesman’s licence is issued through a licensed dealer. Salespeople cannot set up on their own.

Becoming a dealer, someone who can run a brokerage, costs more again. In 2024 the dealer agency course was quoted at J$200,000 for Jamaicans and J$235,000 for international applicants. The usual route is two years’ practice as a salesman first. According to Dr Beale, the dealer exams, which include essay and structured questions, have historically had a pass rate of around 60 per cent.

Hundreds pass through, far fewer get licensed

Demand for the course has grown. Before 2020, RETI trained roughly 500 to 600 people a year, Dr Beale told the Observer in February 2024. Since 2021 the number has risen to about 700 to 750 a year.

But only about 20 to 25 per cent of those who finish the salesman course go on to get a licence soon after, she said. Police records and bankruptcy clearances slow many down, and others simply never finish the paperwork.

The clock is ticking for them. Anyone who passes the course but does not register within three years must take a refresher course of 75 lecture hours over seven weeks, at a listed fee of J$55,000. The same applies to licensees who let their licence lapse for three consecutive financial years.

Practising without a licence is a crime

The Board has repeatedly warned that the gap between “did the course” and “holds a licence” matters. In 2023 it received 47 complaints about people doing real estate business without a licence, and found all 47 to be valid, the Observer reported.

As originally passed, the 1987 Act allowed a court to jail someone practising without a licence for up to five years on indictment. It also bars an unlicensed person from suing to recover a commission. Governments have promised tougher fines more than once, in 2013 and again in 2020, when Cabinet also approved merging the Board, the Commission of Strata Corporations and the Timeshare Registrar into a single Real Estate Authority of Jamaica. Six years on, that authority still does not exist in law.

The courts have backed the Board’s discretion. In 2023 the Court of Appeal refused a newly registered salesperson permission to challenge conditions the Board had placed on her licence after she advertised on Instagram before it was issued. The Board’s lawyer called it the first ruling on the reasonableness of such conditions.

The public has reason to care. In March 2026 the Realtors Association of Jamaica warned buyers after a licensed agent’s “For Sale” signs were stolen from a property in Stony Hill, given a fraudster’s phone number and put up on another property in Portland. In April the Board said more than 157 developments on its register were past their promised completion dates, and that it had taken at least one developer to court.

What changes next

Three changes are coming together:

• Mandatory learning. According to the June 2026 edition of the Board’s Real Estate Journal, licence renewal will require 10 CPD credits a year from the 2027/2028 period, with no more than three from outside pre-approved activities. The Board has cut several course fees from J$4,000–J$5,000 to J$2,500 and is adding eight new courses. Its online CPD quizzes have a pass mark of 100 per cent.
• A new ethics code. In August the Board said a five-member panel would draft a Code of Ethical Conduct to replace the 1998 regulations, covering advertising, disclosure, conflicts of interest and competence. No timeline has been set.
• A bigger beat. The Shared Communities Bill, tabled in Parliament in January, would have the Board hear disputes in gated communities and issue the certificates that allow a home to be sold over unpaid fees.

For buyers and sellers, the advice has not changed in 38 years. Check that anyone you deal with is licensed, using the Board’s online register at reb.gov.jm, before you hand over a dollar.

For anyone thinking of joining the profession, our step-by-step guide to becoming a licensed agent walks through the process.

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