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ATTORNEY GENERAL’S OPINION

QUESTIONS: 1. Is a corporation which maintains and operates a golf club and related facilities required to use the services of a licensed real estate broker or salesman for the sale of a golf club membership, which membership includes the sale of a lot? 2. Is the corporation mentioned in Question I required to secure the services of a licensed broker or salesman (1) in event the corporation, for a fee, sells a member’s lot at his request or (2) in the event the corporation, for a fee, rents or leases a member’s house?

CONCLUSIONS:  1. No.
2. Yes.

OPINION: With respect to Question 1, G. S. 93A-2(c) provides, in port, that no real estate broker’s or salesman’s license is required for a corporation which, as owner, sells its own real estate.
With respect to Question 2, G. S. 93A-2(a) provides:

“A real estate broker within the meaning of this chapter is any person, partnership, association, or corporation, who for a compensation or valuable consideration or promise thereof lists or offers to list, sells or offers to sell, buy or offers to buy, auctions or offers to auction (specifically not including a mere crier of sales), or negotiates the purchase or sale or exchange of real estate, or who leases or offers to lease, or who sells or offers to sell leases of whatever character, or rents or offers to rent any real estate or the improvement thereon, for others.” (Emphasis added.)

Thus the lease or rental of a member’s house by the corporation for a fee clearly falls within the statutory definition of a real estate broker.

It is noted that the corporation here involved was organized as a non-profit corporation under Chapter 55A of the General Statutes. Whether the corporation was organized for profit under Chapter 55 or as a nonprofit corporation would not affect the conclusions made herein.

This article came from the Fall 1970 Vol1-3 edition of the bulletin.