Agency, Dual Agency & Buyer Representation on the California Exam
The AD form regime, dual agency done legally, and the new buyer-representation agreement law — Laws of Agency and Fiduciary Duties carries 17% of the California exam, and its rules changed more in 2024-2025 than in the prior decade.
What this topic covers
- The agency disclosure regime (Civ. Code 2079.13-2079.24): who gets the AD form, when, and how agency is confirmed in the contract
- Dual agency — legal in California with disclosure and consent, and what a dual agent may never reveal about price
- Buyer-representation agreements under AB 2992: when one is required, the three-month cap, and what the agreement must contain
- The agent's visual-inspection duty on residential property and the disclosures owed to non-clients
Why candidates miss it
The failure pattern
Candidates who studied from another state's material carry over rules California rejects: they answer that dual agency is illegal (it isn't here — it requires disclosure and consent), or they miss that since 2025 a written buyer-representation agreement is required and capped at three months. The exam rewards knowing California's actual statutory scheme, not the national pattern.
Skills the exam tests
Not definitions to recite — decisions to make. These are the moves the questions actually demand:
- Decide which party must receive the agency disclosure form in a mixed fact pattern, and when
- Spot what a dual agent may and may not disclose — price flexibility is confidential in both directions
- Apply the buyer-representation rules: trigger, maximum term, renewal, and the corporate-buyer exemption
- Distinguish the duties owed a principal from those owed a non-client third party
How the adaptive engine diagnoses it
Agency is the second-heaviest area on the DRE outline, so the engine measures it early and often. Items are tagged to the exact instrument (agency-disclosure, dual-agency, buyer-representation), every one cites its Civil Code section, and misses surface by name in your readiness report — the same area breakdown the DRE gives failed candidates.
Blueprint domains behind this topic
- Laws of Agency and Fiduciary Duties — 17% of its section
Find out where you actually stand
The free diagnostic measures every blueprint domain — including this one — in about 15 minutes, then shows what to fix first.
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