The Commission changed the broker-in-charge rule effective July 1, 2014, and, in doing so, eliminated the Broker-in-Charge Annual Review (BICAR) course, and created two versions of the Update course: the Broker-in-Charge Update course (BICUP) and the General Update course.
Rule 58A.0110(k) now requires brokers-in-charge and those brokers wishing to maintain BIC eligibility, to complete the BICUP course beginning the first full license year after the license year in which the BIC declares her/himself as BIC. The four-hour BICUP will satisfy the mandatory CE portion of the BIC’s CE requirement for the license year, and the elimination of the required BICAR elective will allow brokers-in-charge to select an approved elective of their choice to satisfy the remaining 4 hours.
Those brokers who are NOT BICs or are not BIC-eligible will take the four-hour General Update course as their mandatory CE, and will also select an approved elective of their choice to satisfy the remaining four hours. Licensees who are neither BICs nor BIC-eligible will not receive any CE credit if they mistakenly take the BICUP course instead of the General Update course.
If a BIC or BIC-eligible licensee mistakenly takes the General Update instead of the BICUP, s/he will receive CE credit for the General Update course; however, s/he will lose his/her BIC status or eligibility the following July 1. The only way to prevent loss of BIC status/eligibility is to also take the BICUP course and a 4-hour elective.
(Verify BIC status on the Commission’s Web site under “Licensing” from the Navigation Bar and “BIC Only” from the drop-down menu. From here, BICs can obtain an eligibility statement/certificate/verification that their BIC status is current.)
This article came from the October 2014-Vol45-2 edition of the bulletin.