BRRETA in Georgia Real Estate: Agency Relationships and Broker Duties

BRRETA is Georgia’s Brokerage Relationships in Real Estate Transactions Act, codified at O.C.G.A. 10-6A-1 through 10-6A-16. It governs every agency relationship a real estate broker can form in the state, defining five relationship types, requiring written engagement agreements, and spelling out exactly what a broker owes to clients and to customers. If you are buying, selling, or leasing property in Georgia, BRRETA sets the rules your broker has to follow.

The statute replaced the old common-law guesswork about who a broker represents with clear categories and specific duties. When those duties are breached, brokers face sanctions from the Georgia Real Estate Commission and civil lawsuits from the people they were supposed to serve.

The Five Agency Relationships BRRETA Recognizes

BRRETA identifies five distinct ways a broker can be involved in a transaction: seller’s agent, buyer’s agent, landlord’s agent, dual agent, and transaction broker. The classification you agree to determines what your broker can do for you and what they cannot.

Seller’s Agent

A seller’s agent works exclusively for the seller. Under the statute the broker must seek a sale at the price and terms in the brokerage engagement, timely present all offers even after the property is under contract, disclose material facts the broker actually knows, advise the seller to get expert help on matters outside the broker’s expertise, and account for all money received.¹ Confidentiality runs one direction: information the seller marks confidential stays confidential unless disclosure is required by law.

Buyer’s Agent

A buyer’s agent owes a mirror set of duties to the buyer: seeking property at acceptable terms, presenting all offers, protecting confidences, and accounting for funds. One extra rule applies when the buyer is purchasing with seller financing or a loan assumption. In that case the broker must disclose to the seller any material adverse facts the broker actually knows about the buyer’s ability to close, and in a residential deal, whether the buyer intends to occupy the property as a principal residence.²

Both seller’s agents and buyer’s agents must comply with federal and state fair housing and civil rights laws. That obligation sits inside the duty sections themselves, not in a separate part of the code.

Dual Agent

Dual agency happens when the same broker represents both the buyer and the seller in the same transaction. BRRETA permits it, but only with the written consent of every client involved. The consent form has to include specific content: a description of the transactions covered, a statement that the broker represents two clients whose interests may be adverse, an explanation that confidential information from one client will not be disclosed to the other (except as the statute requires), and a clear statement that the client does not have to agree to dual agency.³

The consent must also require disclosure of any material relationship between the broker’s affiliated licensees and the other client, such as a personal, familial, or business connection that could impair fair judgment. A broker who acts as a dual agent without proper written consent has committed unauthorized dual agency, one of the more serious violations the commission investigates.

Designated Agency

Designated agency is a variation used by larger firms. Different licensees inside the same brokerage represent opposing parties, and the supervising broker prevents confidential information from crossing between them. Each side gets a dedicated advocate rather than one broker trying to serve both.

Transaction Broker

A transaction broker assists both sides without representing either one. No agency relationship forms, and the broker owes no fiduciary duties like loyalty or confidentiality. The role is limited to ministerial acts that do not require professional judgment on behalf of either party.⁴ The statute gives examples of what a transaction broker can do:

Identify property for sale, lease, or exchange
Provide real estate statistics and market information
Fill in preprinted contract forms, leases, and addenda as a scribe
Present offers, counteroffers, and other communications
Locate inspectors, lenders, attorneys, surveyors, and similar service providers
Point out schools, shopping, and other neighborhood facilities

Transaction brokers still have real obligations. They must timely present all offers, account for money and property received, and make the same material-fact disclosures about property and neighborhood conditions that seller’s and buyer’s agents must make. They cannot knowingly provide false information. The statute does protect a broker who passes along false information without knowing it was false, provided the broker discloses the source.⁴

Transaction brokerage suits sellers who want to run their own negotiations but need help with paperwork and logistics. In a for-sale-by-owner scenario, a transaction broker can draft compliant contracts and coordinate inspections without picking a side. The trade-off is that neither party gets advocacy or strategic advice from the broker.

Written Engagement Agreements Are Required

BRRETA relationships have to be established in writing. A broker performing services for a client owes only the duties in the statute plus any additional duties the parties agree to in writing. A verbal promise to represent someone does not create an enforceable agency relationship under BRRETA.

If the written engagement does not specify an expiration date and neither party terminates it, the relationship automatically expires one year after it began.⁵ After the engagement ends, the broker’s remaining duties narrow to accounting for money and property from the engagement and maintaining any confidential information the client designated. Confidentiality survives the engagement indefinitely unless the client later permits disclosure, the law requires it, or the information becomes public from another source.

One provision surprises brokers and clients alike. When a broker’s duty to keep a client’s confidence collides with the duty not to give a customer false information, the duty not to lie wins. The statute expressly bars any cause of action against a broker who reveals client information in order to avoid giving a customer false information.⁵

Clients Versus Customers

BRRETA draws a sharp line between clients and customers, and it matters. A client has a written brokerage engagement and receives the full range of duties: loyalty, confidentiality, advice, and advocacy. A customer is someone the broker works with but does not represent. The duties owed to customers are thinner, but they are still legally enforceable.

Every broker, whatever the relationship type, must treat all parties honestly and avoid providing false information. A seller’s agent who helps an unrepresented buyer can perform ministerial acts for that buyer without creating an agency relationship, but the agent cannot knowingly mislead the buyer about the property or the transaction.¹

Brokers also owe reasonable skill and care in every transaction. That means making sure contracts are executed properly, deadlines are tracked, earnest money is handled according to the agreement, and clients are advised to seek expert help on matters beyond the broker’s competence. Negligent handling of any of those tasks can create liability even when the broker acted in good faith.

What Brokers Must Disclose

BRRETA’s disclosure duties apply to seller’s agents, buyer’s agents, and transaction brokers, with slight variations by role. The core requirement is the same across all three: brokers must timely disclose adverse material facts about the physical condition of the property that the broker actually knows and that the buyer could not discover through a reasonably diligent inspection.¹

The statute specifically covers material defects, environmental contamination, and facts other statutes require to be disclosed. Brokers must also disclose known adverse physical conditions in the immediate neighborhood within one mile of the property that a buyer could not discover through diligent inspection or review of publicly available government records such as zoning ordinances, flood plain maps, crime statistics, and school district boundaries.⁴

There is an important limit. Brokers are not required to investigate or independently verify potential defects. The disclosure duty is triggered by actual knowledge, not constructive knowledge. If a broker has no reason to know about a foundation crack hidden behind drywall, the broker has no duty to find it. Once the broker becomes aware of it, though, the duty to disclose kicks in immediately.

Stigmatized Properties

Georgia law shields brokers on stigmatized properties. Under O.C.G.A. 44-1-16, no cause of action arises against a broker for failing to disclose that a property was the site of a homicide, felony, suicide, or death by accidental or natural causes.⁶ The same protection covers the former presence of an occupant with a disease that medical evidence shows is highly unlikely to be transmitted through occupancy.

One exception matters. If a buyer directly asks whether a death or crime occurred on the property, the broker must answer truthfully to the best of their individual knowledge. The broker is not required to answer, however, if doing so would violate federal or state fair housing law.

Dual Agency: Where Most Problems Start

Because dual agency puts one broker on both sides of a transaction, BRRETA hedges it heavily. The written consent has to be genuine and specific. It must describe the transactions covered, warn that the two clients’ interests may be adverse, and explain that anything one client marks confidential will not be shared with the other except as the statute requires. It must also disclose any material relationship between the broker’s affiliated licensees and the other client, and it must tell the client plainly that consent is not mandatory.³

If any of those elements is missing, the broker is acting as an unauthorized dual agent, which draws GREC scrutiny. If you are asked to consent to dual agency, read the form carefully. You are giving up the ability to expect your broker to advocate against the other side.

What Happens When a Broker Breaks the Rules

GREC handles the license-law side. After a complaint is filed, the commission investigates and, if the evidence supports it, can hold a formal hearing. Sanctions available to GREC include reprimand, license suspension, license revocation, mandatory education, trust account audits, license restrictions, and fines of up to $1,000 per violation capped at $5,000 per disciplinary proceeding.⁷ GREC does not resolve monetary disputes about earnest money, repairs, or commission splits between licensees.

Civil liability is a separate track. A client harmed by a broker’s breach of statutory duty can sue for damages under Georgia contract and tort law. The most common scenario is a broker who fails to disclose a known defect, leaving the buyer to discover it after closing and absorb repair costs the broker could have flagged.

Georgia’s Fair Business Practices Act stacks on top. Under O.C.G.A. 10-1-399, anyone injured by a deceptive trade practice can bring a civil action for actual damages, reasonable attorney’s fees, and litigation expenses. For intentional violations, courts must award three times the actual damages.⁸ A broker who intentionally conceals a defect to close a deal risks paying triple the buyer’s losses plus the buyer’s legal fees.

Georgia also maintains a Real Estate Education, Research, and Recovery Fund under O.C.G.A. 43-40-22. It is a backstop for consumers who win a judgment against a licensee but cannot collect. It does not replace a civil lawsuit; it is a last resort when the broker lacks the assets to pay.

If you think a Georgia broker has violated BRRETA or the license law, get the written engagement agreement, the closing documents, and any correspondence together first. Whether the right next step is a GREC complaint, a civil lawsuit, or both depends on what happened and what you are trying to recover, and a Georgia real estate attorney can sort that out with you before deadlines start running.