What the fund is for
The Real Estate Education, Research, and Recovery Fund pays consumers holding uncollectible judgments against a licensee for conduct violating the license law. It is a last resort, funded by licensees, and capped in three directions at once.
The three caps
- $25,000.00 per transaction, regardless of the number of persons aggrieved or parcels involved (O.C.G.A. 43-40-22(b)).
- $25,000.00 per claimant — no person shall ever obtain more than that from the fund (43-40-22(b)(3)).
- $75,000.00 in the aggregate for the acts of any one licensee; the fund's liability terminates once court orders authorize payments totaling that amount (43-40-22(b)(1)).
The $50,000 aggregate is the most common distractor and understates the statutory total; $10,000 per transaction appears nowhere in the statute.
Worked example: order of payment
One licensee generates four uncollectible judgments of $25,000, $25,000, $20,000 and $30,000 — $100,000 in all. Claims are satisfied in the order originally filed.
- First claim: $25,000
- Second claim: $25,000
- Third claim: $20,000, paid in full
- Running total: $25,000 + $25,000 + $20,000 = $70,000
- Aggregate cap is $75,000, so only $5,000 remains for the fourth claim.
Total paid: $75,000. The $30,000 claim exceeded the per-transaction and per-claimant limits anyway. The tempting wrong answer pays $25,000 on the fourth claim and leaves $20,000 unpaid on the third: right total, wrong order.
What payment does to the license
Under O.C.G.A. 43-40-22(d)(6), the license is automatically revoked upon issuance of the court order authorizing payment. No further contested case hearing is needed, because the revocation follows from the payment order itself.
No new license may issue until the amount paid is repaid in full plus interest at the judgment rate under O.C.G.A. 7-4-12, and a discharge in bankruptcy does not relieve the person of these penalties and disabilities. If the license was a firm's, the qualifying broker's license is automatically revoked as well. The two-year period in this Code section is the deadline for starting the underlying action, not a suspension term.