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Georgia curriculum lesson · Real Estate Practice in Georgia

BRRETA Confidentiality, Actual Knowledge, and Company Policy

BRRETA protects client information made confidential by express request or instruction unless the client later permits disclosure or law requires it. Confidentiality can survive termination under the statute and engagement. Other duties often turn on what the broker actually knows, and Section 10-6A-13 limits when knowledge is imputed across affiliated licensees. A written company agency policy helps define relationships but cannot erase statutory duties.

Facts checked against the current PSI Candidate Information Bulletin and GREC sources. Editorial standards.

What is the exam-ready answer?

BRRETA protects client information made confidential by express request or instruction unless the client later permits disclosure or law requires it. Confidentiality can survive termination under the statute and engagement. Other duties often turn on what the broker actually knows, and Section 10-6A-13 limits when knowledge is imputed across affiliated licensees. A written company agency policy helps define relationships but cannot erase statutory duties.
Official syllabus mapping for BRRETA Confidentiality, Actual Knowledge, and Company Policy
Official syllabus topicReal Estate Practice in Georgia: Listings and Agency
Official PSI groupReal Estate Practice in Georgia
Published group count21 of the 52 Georgia questions
Exam portionGeorgia salesperson supplement
Source editionPSI Georgia Candidate Information Bulletin dated July 1, 2026

The Rule

PSI publishes 16, 21, and 15 items for the three Georgia groups. It does not publish a guaranteed subtopic count. The statute, current GREC rule, contract, or other cited primary authority controls each lesson.

The lesson

Georgia questions reward the Georgia rule. A national rule that sounds right can still be the wrong answer when the question names a Georgia statute, document, role or procedure.

Express confidentiality

The seller, buyer, landlord, and tenant duty sections protect information made confidential through express request or instruction, not every fact in the universe.

Required disclosure

Confidentiality does not authorize concealment where law requires disclosure, including specified actually known adverse material facts.

Actual knowledge

BRRETA repeatedly uses actual knowledge. A broker is not assigned a universal duty to discover every unknown condition.

Company policy and imputation

A brokerage's written policy and designated relationships affect whose knowledge is attributed, but statutory disclosures and each designated licensee's duties remain controlling.

Decision rule

Ask who knows the fact, how they learned it, whether the client expressly protected it, whether law compels disclosure, and whose knowledge BRRETA attributes.

Georgia rule and national contrast

Georgia's express-request confidentiality and actual-knowledge language are more precise than the broad loyalty mnemonics used in national agency courses.

Worked Georgia example

Scenario. A seller asks the listing broker to keep a job transfer confidential but also reveals an actually known concealed foundation failure.

Reason it through. The motivation can be protected by express request. The adverse physical fact falls within the disclosure duty and cannot be hidden merely by calling it confidential.

Answer. Protect the job-transfer information but disclose the foundation fact as required.

Common exam traps

  • Calling a required disclosure confidential
  • Assuming every office employee knows every fact
  • Inventing a duty to discover
  • Treating termination as automatic permission to reveal secrets

Original practice questions with detailed explanations

These are original instructional questions mapped to the July 1, 2026 PSI outline. They are not copied from PSI or a live examination. Choose an answer before opening the explanation.

Question 1

A seller asks the listing broker to keep a job transfer confidential. The seller also mentions a foundation failure hidden behind finished basement walls. A buyer's agent asks about both. What should the listing broker do?

  1. A. Keep both private, since the seller asked for confidentiality.
  2. B. Keep the transfer private but disclose the foundation failure.
  3. C. Disclose both, since the buyer's side asked directly about them.
  4. D. Disclose the foundation only if the buyer's inspection misses it.
Show answer and explanation →

Answer: B. Keep the transfer private but disclose the foundation failure.

The seller can protect personal information like a job transfer by express request, but confidentiality cannot hide an actually known adverse physical defect a buyer could not readily discover. The broker protects the motivation and discloses the foundation failure. Keeping both private is the plausible trap, because it treats a required disclosure as a confidence.

Question 2

A listing expired unsold. The seller had asked the listing broker to keep a pending divorce confidential. A buyer now asks the former listing broker why the seller was so eager to sell. What may the broker do?

  1. A. Share it, because all duties ended when the listing expired.
  2. B. Share it, as long as the new buyer has no broker of their own.
  3. C. Share it only with the next listing broker, who needs the history.
  4. D. Keep it private unless the seller permits or the law requires it.
Show answer and explanation →

Answer: D. Keep it private unless the seller permits or the law requires it.

Information a client made confidential by express request stays protected after the engagement ends, unless the client consents or the law requires disclosure. The divorce is personal information, not an adverse physical fact. Assuming termination frees the broker to talk is the trap in the first choice.

Question 3

In a firm using designated agency, one licensee represents the seller and another represents the buyer. The seller's licensee knows the seller must close within 30 days and was asked to keep it confidential. Is the buyer's licensee treated as knowing it?

  1. A. No, BRRETA does not attribute it to the buyer's licensee.
  2. B. Yes, every licensee in one firm shares the firm's knowledge.
  3. C. Yes, because the broker is presumed to know everything.
  4. D. No, because the buyer's licensee has not yet made an offer.
Show answer and explanation →

Answer: A. No, BRRETA does not attribute it to the buyer's licensee.

BRRETA's designated agency rules control whose knowledge counts, and they do not automatically assign one designated licensee's information to the other. That keeps each client's confidences with the licensee serving that client. The firm-wide knowledge answer is the plausible trap because it sounds like common agency law.

Ready to move on?

You are ready for the next lesson when all of these are true.

  • Explain BRRETA Confidentiality, Actual Knowledge, and Company Policy in one clear answer without notes.
  • Separate Express confidentiality from Required disclosure using a fresh example.
  • Apply the decision rule to a new fact pattern and name the fact that controls the result.
  • State the Georgia-specific point or explain why the national rule applies unchanged.
  • Answer every practice question and explain the rule each rejected option misapplies.
  • Revisit this topic later in mixed practice without category labels.

Recommended next lesson

Continue with Georgia Sales Contracts and Due-Diligence Periods. The sales contracts lesson puts these duties to work inside the purchase agreement, where the due-diligence period, deadlines and notice rules come from the contract itself rather than from a statute.

Return to the Real Estate Practice in Georgia hub for the complete official branch and the full lesson list for this Georgia group.

BRRETA Confidentiality, Actual Knowledge, and Company Policy questions

Facts checked against the current PSI Candidate Information Bulletin and GREC sources. Editorial standards.

Is BRRETA Confidentiality, Actual Knowledge, and Company Policy on the Georgia real estate exam?

Yes. It maps to PSI's Real Estate Practice in Georgia group, which has 21 of the 52 Georgia questions. PSI does not publish a guaranteed question count for this individual lesson.

What is the main Georgia rule for BRRETA Confidentiality, Actual Knowledge, and Company Policy?

Ask who knows the fact, how they learned it, whether the client expressly protected it, whether law compels disclosure, and whose knowledge BRRETA attributes.

How is this different from a national real estate rule?

Georgia's express-request confidentiality and actual-knowledge language are more precise than the broad loyalty mnemonics used in national agency courses.