Alert – The California Department of Real Estate (“DRE”) is focusing on agents and brokers using unapproved DBAs and, particularly, team names.

Please double-check all of your advertising, websites, and signature blocks to ensure any DBAs have been approved by the DRE for your broker to use, and that all team names comply with all team name advertising requirements.  These violations are leading to fines and investigations into brokers’ practices and allegations that a broker failed to properly supervise.

Team names and DBAs must be treated separately since DBAs require a DBA license approved for the broker to use. Team names require no registration at all.  Team names and “salesperson-owned” DBAs have similar advertising requirements, while “broker-owned” DBAs have different advertising rules.