Pending NY Legislation • RPL §442-c
Broker Supervision in 2026: Understanding Your Sponsor's New Legal Obligations (A5164)
Assembly Bill A5164 carries a 90% likelihood of passage. It rewrites what your sponsoring broker is legally required to do for you — and reshapes how the NYS Department of State will judge supervision failures.
What A5164 Is, and Why Every NY Salesperson Must Understand It
When you become a licensed real estate salesperson in New York, you cannot practice independently. You must associate with a licensed real estate broker who becomes your sponsor — your legal and professional anchor. That relationship is governed by Real Property Law §442-c, which has historically left the precise meaning of a broker’s supervision duty frustratingly vague.
nAssembly Bill A5164, introduced in the 2025–2026 legislative session by Assemblymember Solages and mirrored in the Senate as S5471, changes that. The bill formally codifies a broker’s duty to provide regular, frequent, and consistent personal guidance, instruction, and oversight — and lists the specific criteria by which “reasonable and adequate supervision” will be judged by the Department of State.
nIndustry analysts rate this bill with a 90% likelihood of passage, and the NYS Department of State has identified it as a priority following several high-profile fair housing enforcement cases. For current and aspiring salespersons, this bill is not abstract legislation — it directly defines the minimum standard of care your sponsoring broker owes you, and the standard you should hold them to before you associate.
The Exact Language of A5164: What Gets Added to RPL §442-c
Under the current version of RPL §442-c, a broker’s license cannot be revoked for a salesperson’s violation unless the broker had actual knowledge of the misconduct, or retained its proceeds. The standard is reactive — it catches bad actors after the fact, but says nothing about what brokers must proactively do.
nA5164 inserts a brand-new subdivision that imposes a proactive duty. The key addition to §442-c reads as follows:
Critically, the bill also adds that a broker’s failure to exercise this supervision — not just actual knowledge of misconduct — can now be grounds for license suspension or revocation. This closes a significant loophole that brokers have historically used as a shield after agent misconduct was discovered.
The 3 Legal Tests: How the DOS Will Determine “Adequate Supervision”
A5164 does not just say brokers must supervise. It tells the DOS exactly how to evaluate whether they did. Three explicit criteria are codified into law.
Document Review Availability
nThe DOS will examine whether the supervising broker was available to review and approve all transaction documents for every salesperson and associate broker under their supervision. A broker who cannot demonstrate consistent document oversight will fail this test — even if no specific misconduct occurred.
nGeographic Oversight Capacity
nThe DOS will consider the physical distance between the broker’s main office and any branch offices where supervised salespersons operate. A broker overseeing agents across multiple distant offices faces a higher scrutiny bar to demonstrate adequate reach and presence for each location.
nFair Housing Law Training
nThe broker must be able to demonstrate that they familiarized their agents with federal and state fair housing laws — explicitly including prohibitions against discrimination. This test was born directly from the Newsday “Long Island Divided” investigation that exposed widespread racial steering by agents operating under brokers who claimed ignorance.
n“To provide clear standards about what the state expects for adequate and reasonable supervision over real estate agents by real estate brokers.”
n— Official Purpose Statement, Assembly Bill A5164 / Senate Bill S5471, 2025–2026 NYS Legislative Session
nThe Legal Gap A5164 Was Designed to Close
To understand why A5164 matters, you need to understand the landmark 1992 case Roberts Real Estate, Inc. v. Department of State (80 NY2d 116). In that case, the New York Court of Appeals ruled that knowledge held by a salesperson could not be “imputed” to their broker for purposes of license revocation. In plain terms: a broker could claim ignorance of an agent’s discriminatory conduct and avoid losing their license, as long as they lacked “actual knowledge.”
nFor three decades, this ruling gave brokers a powerful legal shield. It meant that failing to supervise agents — the very conduct that allowed discrimination and fraud to go undetected — was only punishable by a fine, not revocation. The Department of State repeatedly pushed for a stricter standard, and Albany repeatedly failed to act.
nA5164 changes the calculus. By explicitly adding “failed to exercise reasonable and adequate supervision” as independent grounds for revocation or suspension (alongside actual knowledge), the bill closes the Roberts loophole. Under A5164, claiming ignorance of a salesperson’s misconduct is no longer enough — the broker must prove they were genuinely present, engaged, and conducting structured oversight.
What A5164 Means for You as a NY Real Estate Salesperson
If A5164 passes — and the 90% passage likelihood strongly suggests it will — the nature of the broker-salesperson relationship in New York changes fundamentally. Here is what every licensed and aspiring salesperson needs to understand.
Under A5164, “supervision” is no longer satisfied by a broker simply appearing on your license paperwork. The DOS will expect evidence of regular, frequent, and consistent personal guidance. If your sponsoring broker is rarely available, never reviews your contracts, or operates remotely from distant branch offices without meaningful oversight infrastructure, they are not compliant — and you could be the one exposed when something goes wrong.
One of the three codified supervision tests requires that the broker be available to review and approve all transaction documents. This means that brokerages relying on autonomous, unsupervised agents handling their own paperwork are legally exposed. For salespersons, this is actually a protection — a broker who reviews your documents before submission catches errors before they become disciplinary matters.
The bill explicitly calls out the broker’s duty to familiarize agents with state and federal anti-discrimination laws. This was directly triggered by the Newsday “Long Island Divided” investigation, which revealed that many agents engaged in racial steering with no broker intervention. Under A5164, your sponsor is legally required to make fair housing law a core part of how they train and guide you.
This is the most consequential change. Under the pre-A5164 standard, a broker who genuinely did not know about an agent’s misconduct was protected from revocation by the Roberts ruling. A5164 adds supervision failure as an independent revocation trigger. That means a broker who was simply absent — not malicious, not complicit, just absent — can now lose their license. This creates a stronger incentive for brokers to actually supervise, which directly benefits every salesperson on their roster.
Under the existing cascade rule in RPL §441-d, your salesperson license is automatically suspended if your sponsoring broker’s license is revoked or suspended. A5164 makes it far more likely that non-supervising brokers will face disciplinary action — which means your exposure to that cascade risk is higher than ever. Choosing your sponsoring broker is not just a career decision; it is a legal one.
RPL §442-c: Before A5164 vs. After A5164
A side-by-side look at how the broker supervision standard changes under the proposed law
🔒 Current Law (Pre-A5164)
n- n
- ✗No explicit definition of what supervision requires n
- ✗Broker revocation only on “actual knowledge” of agent misconduct n
- ✗No mandatory document review requirement n
- ✗No explicit fair housing training obligation n
- ✗Supervision failure = fine only (not revocation) n
- ✗No geographic oversight accountability n
🔓 Under A5164 (Proposed)
n- n
- ✓Supervision codified: regular, frequent, consistent personal guidance n
- ✓Supervision failure = independent revocation/suspension trigger n
- ✓Mandatory availability to review & approve all documents n
- ✓Explicit duty to provide fair housing law training n
- ✓Geographic distance assessed as supervision factor n
- ✓Three-factor test creates clear DOS enforcement framework n
How to Vet Your Sponsoring Broker Against the A5164 Standard
Whether A5164 is signed into law this session or next, its three supervision tests represent the direction the industry is heading. Use them as a broker selection framework right now.
A5164 in Context: The Broader 2026 NY Legislative Watchlist
A5164 does not stand alone. It is part of a coordinated wave of NY real estate reform legislation currently moving through Albany.
A5169: Extended Revocation Rule
Already enacted in late 2025, this law tripled the relicensing blackout period after revocation from 1 year to 3 years and made all revocation histories permanently searchable on data.ny.gov.
S7499: Two-Year Listing Cap
Pending with 80% passage likelihood, this bill would prohibit residential listing agreements from lasting longer than two years and ban automatic renewal clauses that lock sellers in indefinitely.
A9518: 4-Year Broker Experience
Advanced to third reading in 2026, this bill would increase the supervised experience requirement for broker applicants from two to four years, significantly raising the bar for promotion within the industry.
90-Day Institutional Buyer Rule
Already signed into law, this provision bars large institutional investors from offering on 1- or 2-family homes for the first 90 days on market, with penalties up to $250,000 per violation.
S5471: Senate Mirror of A5164
The Senate companion bill to A5164, introduced by Senators Comrie and Kavanagh. Both chambers moving the same language significantly increases the probability of enactment this session.
PCDS & Buyer Agreement Rules
NAR settlement compliance is now mandatory for NYSAR members, requiring written buyer representation agreements before any substantive showing — reshaping how agents and their brokers structure client intake.
Frequently Asked Questions
Everything NY real estate students and salespersons are asking about A5164 and broker supervision
Is A5164 already law, or is it still pending?
What does "regular, frequent and consistent personal guidance" actually mean in practice?
Does A5164 mean my broker can now be revoked for something I did without their knowledge?
How does A5164 interact with the 3-year revocation rule (A5169)?
What should I look for in a sponsoring broker to ensure they meet the A5164 standard?
Can a salesperson be penalized if their broker fails to supervise properly?
Build a Career That Lasts
Your Pre-Licensing Education Is Your First Line of Defense.
Understanding the legal framework that governs your broker relationship — from RPL §442-c to A5164 to the 3-year revocation rule — is exactly what MLS Campus teaches in its DOS-approved 77-hour NY pre-licensing program. Start here.