Real estate mogul and Real Madrid superstar Florentino Perez has recently been saying he’d like to see the sport return to the United States.
But as of today, he won’t be able to.
That’s because a new federal law, the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA), requires every state to have a state commissioner of real estate.
The new law, which took effect on January 1, makes it easier for states to revoke the license of a company with a registered agent in another state, which can lead to a ban on their operations.
The legislation was approved by the Senate and is expected to go to President Donald Trump.
The law has had a profound impact on real estate, says Robert W. Laskin, a professor at the University of Southern California School of Law.
“It’s been a huge driver of economic growth in the country, and it’s going to continue to have an impact on the growth of the real estate market,” says Laskins, who is a co-author of the book “Real Estate and the Rise of the New Real Estate Boom”.
“In addition to having a massive impact on economic growth, it’s also been a driver of real-estate regulation in other states.”
Under RESPA, all states are required to conduct an annual audit of their registered agent programs and report any problems to the US Attorney General.
And if the audit shows that a company has not been complying with the law, then the state must immediately revoke its license.
The law, however, does not require states to monitor the status of the licenses of companies.
In the US, that would require a government agency like the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
“Respecting the sovereignty of states is critical to the rule of law,” says Rebecca Hensley, a law professor at Ohio State University.
Respect of states was an important theme of the Republican presidential primary campaign, and Trump has frequently referenced the law in recent weeks.
After being elected in November, Trump issued an executive order ordering that all US state governments, and their agencies, must conduct annual audits of their agents and assess whether they have complied with the RESPA.
And in a move that will be seen as a victory for real estate interests, Trump has now ordered all federal agencies to develop a plan to monitor and remove companies that are not compliant with the new law.
As part of its enforcement efforts, the FTC has been working with state attorneys general to get to the bottom of the issue, and is working to create a database to track violations.
So far, the SEC has only found five companies that have not complied with RESPA and revoked their licenses, according to an SEC filing in March.
But the SEC does not have an official count of the number of states that have revoked licenses, and only the most recent six states, which were all in the same region, have received the most attention.
The SEC did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
With real estate being a hot commodity, states have taken measures to crack down on real-ty business in recent years.
California, New York, Vermont, New Jersey and Florida have enacted laws requiring agents to register with the state or face possible fines of up to $10,000 per violation.
And New York’s real-tourism authority has also been cracking down on the use of foreign agents to make a living.
At the same time, many states have created their own real-tor licensing boards, creating a body of regulators with the authority to oversee the operation of realtors.
It’s unclear how many states will have the authority under RESPA to issue new licenses to foreign agents, and even if they do, it could be difficult to enforce, Laskis says.
A lot of states are going to be seeing the effects of this.
In a letter to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, a coalition of states, real estate companies and real estate advocates said the new regulation would have “serious negative consequences for the ability of the U.S. to compete on the international stage”.
So, what happens next?
According to the Financial Times, a number of realty interests have already spoken out about the impact the new RESPA will have on their business.
Last month, the National Association of Realtors warned that real-tederror licensing may not be possible in many states.
Even with RESPa, real-land sales, which account for roughly 15% of all the transactions in the US market, are still in the very early stages of the economic boom, says Brian Blau, president of the Realtor Institute.
Blau told the Financial Press that the new REPA would “cut into our ability to get people in the homes we want to sell to the best potential buyers in the market, which will ultimately hurt the local economy”.
Meanwhile, the real-treasurer association,