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Bus. & Prof. Code, § 10159.7 · Article 2. Licenses

Bus. & Prof. Code, § 10159.7

Verbatim from the official edition

Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)

(a) For the purposes of this article, the following definitions shall apply:

(1) “Fictitious business name” means a professional identity or brand name under which activity requiring a real estate license is conducted and the use of which is subject to approval by the department pursuant to Section 10159.5.

(2) “Ownership of a fictitious business name” means the right to use, renew, and control the use of a fictitious business name obtained in accordance with Section 10159.5.

(3) “Team name” means a professional identity or brand name used by a salesperson, and one or more other real estate licensees, for the provision of real estate licensed services. Notwithstanding any other law, the use of a team name does not require that a separate license be issued for that name pursuant to Section 10159.5. A team name does not constitute a fictitious business name for purposes of this part or any other law or for purposes of filing a fictitious business name statement with an application as required by subdivision (a) of Section 10159.5 if all of the following apply:

(A) The name is used by two or more real estate licensees who work together to provide licensed real estate services, or who represent themselves to the public as being a part of a team, group, or association to provide those services.

(B) The name includes the surname of at least one of the licensee members of the team, group, or association in conjunction with the term “associates,” “group,” or “team.”

(C) The name does not include any term or terms, such as “real estate broker,” “real estate brokerage,” “broker,” or “brokerage” or any other term that would lead a member of the public to believe that the team is offering real estate brokerage services, that imply or suggest the existence of a real estate entity independent of a responsible broker.

(b) Nothing in this section changes a real estate broker’s duties under this division to supervise a salesperson.

Notes and commentary — not statutory text

History

Amended by Stats. 2018, Ch. 285, Sec. 39. (AB 2884) Effective January 1, 2019.

Source of truth

Edition
As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
Official file
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=BPC&sectionNum=10159.7.
Text hash
sha256 72778b91697c8ce1ea495dfe77348c67a6f5ccd9b032b16cd6de97cd0db968f7
Composed by
compose_ca.py 2026-10-22: the Legislative Counsel's CAML content files read by a tokenizer (caml_readers.reader_a); an independent xml.etree reading (caml_readers.reader_b) agrees on every section

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