Where this fits on the exam
| Official syllabus topic | Real Estate Practice in Georgia: Listings and Agency |
|---|---|
| Official PSI group | Real Estate Practice in Georgia |
| Published group count | 21 of the 52 Georgia questions |
| Exam portion | Georgia salesperson supplement |
| Source edition | PSI 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
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
A client's request cannot hide a required disclosure, such as an actually known hidden adverse physical fact. If keeping a confidence would mean giving a customer false information, the duty not to give false information prevails. Protect the confidence by declining an improper question, rather than lying.
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.
After the engagement ends
The broker still accounts for money and property and protects expressly confidential information. Disclosure is allowed if the former client permits it, the law requires it, or it becomes public from a source other than the broker. Expiration alone is not permission to share a price ceiling, divorce, or job transfer.
Decision rule
Georgia rule and national contrast
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 1A 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?
- A. Keep both private, since the seller asked for confidentiality.
- B. Keep the transfer private but disclose the foundation failure.
- C. Disclose both, since the buyer's side asked directly about them.
- 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.
- A. Incorrect. The seller cannot make a required hidden-defect disclosure confidential.
- B. Correct. Protect the requested personal confidence, but disclose the actually known, concealed adverse physical fact.
- C. Incorrect. A direct question does not authorize revealing the protected job-transfer information.
- D. Incorrect. The known concealed defect must be disclosed without waiting for an inspection to miss it.
Question 2A 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?
- A. Share it, because all duties ended when the listing expired.
- B. Share it, as long as the new buyer has no broker of their own.
- C. Share it only with the next listing broker, who needs the history.
- 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, the law requires disclosure, or the information becomes public from another source. The divorce is personal information, not an adverse physical fact. Assuming termination frees the broker to talk is the trap in the first choice.
- A. Incorrect. The duty to protect expressly confidential information can survive expiration of the engagement.
- B. Incorrect. The buyer's representation status does not release the former seller's confidence.
- C. Incorrect. A succeeding broker does not automatically acquire permission to receive the seller's protected personal information.
- D. Correct. The former broker keeps the confidence unless an authorized exception, such as consent or legal duty, applies.
Question 3In 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?
- A. No, BRRETA does not attribute it to the buyer's licensee.
- B. Yes, every licensee in one firm shares the firm's knowledge.
- C. Yes, because the broker is presumed to know everything.
- 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.
- A. Correct. Designated agency does not automatically impute one designated licensee's knowledge to the other.
- B. Incorrect. Common employment does not by itself attribute this protected information across designated agents.
- C. Incorrect. A presumption about the broker does not automatically transfer the seller agent's confidence to the buyer agent.
- D. Incorrect. The rule concerns designated representation and knowledge, not whether an offer has been made.
Question 4After a listing expires, the former seller gives the broker permission to tell a named prospective buyer about the job transfer the seller had previously made confidential. May the broker share that information with that buyer?
- A. No, because client confidentiality can never be waived
- B. Yes, within the scope of the former client's permission
- C. Yes, with every buyer because the listing expired
- D. Only after the buyer signs a brokerage engagement
Show answer and explanation →
Answer: B. Yes, within the scope of the former client's permission
The confidentiality duty survives expiration, but the former client may later permit disclosure. The broker may share the job-transfer information with the named buyer as authorized. That permission does not authorize disclosure to everyone or release other protected information.
- A. Incorrect. The former client can authorize disclosure of information that was made confidential.
- B. Correct. The seller's permission supplies the exception, limited to the information and recipient authorized.
- C. Incorrect. Expiration alone does not release the confidence, and permission for one buyer is not permission for every buyer.
- D. Incorrect. The buyer's engagement is unrelated to the former seller's authority to permit disclosure.
Question 5A former seller had expressly asked the broker to keep a job transfer private. After the engagement ends, the seller publicly announces that same transfer in a newspaper interview. The broker was not the source of the newspaper's information. How does this affect BRRETA confidentiality for that fact?
- A. The public-source exception can apply to the transfer fact
- B. The broker may now disclose every fact learned from the seller
- C. The transfer remains confidential regardless of its public source
- D. The newspaper interview automatically revives the engagement
Show answer and explanation →
Answer: A. The public-source exception can apply to the transfer fact
BRRETA's continuing confidentiality duty has an exception when the information becomes public from a source other than the broker. The seller's own public interview meets that condition for the transfer fact. Other information remains subject to its own confidentiality duties, and the interview does not restart the engagement.
- A. Correct. The transfer became public through the seller rather than the broker, satisfying the stated public-source exception.
- B. Incorrect. One public fact does not release unrelated confidential price, family, or negotiating information.
- C. Incorrect. This ignores the exception for information made public by another source.
- D. Incorrect. Public disclosure of a fact does not create a new brokerage contract.
Ready to move on?
You are ready for the next lesson when all of these are true.
- Identify information the client expressly asked the broker to keep confidential.
- Distinguish protected negotiating information from a known adverse fact that law requires disclosed.
- Apply the exceptions for authorized disclosure, required disclosure, and information made public by another source.
- Answer the practice questions without looking back, then explain why the other choices fail.
- Explain the worked example in your own words and identify the fact that decides the answer.
- Retest this topic on another day in a mixed question set.
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.