Updated August 2026 · Reviewed by Adams, Cameron & Co.
For a felony, yes, and the window is short. Florida law makes it a separate ground for discipline to fail to inform the Commission in writing within 30 days after pleading guilty or nolo contendere to, or being convicted or found guilty of, any felony. That obligation is about felonies specifically and it applies whether or not the offense had anything to do with real estate. Separately, a conviction can itself be grounds for discipline where the crime relates to the activities of a licensee or involves moral turpitude or fraudulent or dishonest dealing, and there the statute says regardless of adjudication, so withheld adjudication does not remove the exposure.
- The reporting duty runs to felonies and gives you 30 days, in writing, from the plea or the finding of guilt.
- Failing to report is its own violation, separate from and in addition to whatever the underlying matter was.
- The clock starts at the plea or the finding, not at sentencing, so waiting for the case to fully conclude is a mistake.
- For the disciplinary ground based on the crime itself, the statute says regardless of adjudication. Withheld adjudication is not a shield.
- Tell your broker as well. Brokerage policy and your errors and omissions arrangement may both be affected.
Most of what is written about criminal history and real estate licensing is aimed at people trying to get licensed in the first place. This page is about the different and less discussed question: what a person who is already licensed has to do if something happens.
It is general information rather than legal advice. Anything touching a criminal matter and your license at the same time is a situation for your own attorney, and the cost of that advice is small against what is at stake.
The reporting duty, and the 30 day window
Florida's real estate licensing law lists the grounds on which the Commission can discipline a licensee. One of them is failing to inform the Commission, in writing within 30 days, after pleading guilty or nolo contendere to, or being convicted or found guilty of, any felony.
Three things about that are worth pulling out, because each one catches people:
- It is written into the statute as a felony obligation. That is the trigger described there, and it does not depend on the offense having anything to do with real estate. A felony arising from a matter entirely outside your working life still engages it.
- The clock starts at the plea or the finding of guilt, not at sentencing and not when the case is finally over. People wait for everything to conclude before dealing with the licensing side and discover the window closed months earlier.
- It has to be in writing. Mentioning it to somebody, or assuming the department will see it on a background check at renewal, is not the same thing.
The part that surprises people: not reporting is its own violation
This is the most important practical point on the page.
The failure to report sits in the statute as a ground for discipline in its own right. That means it is possible to face action over the non-report as a separate matter from the underlying offense. An agent who deals with a criminal case, gets through it, and never notifies the Commission has potentially created a second problem that did not exist before, and it is one entirely of their own making.
It is also the problem that is hardest to explain afterwards. Whatever happened in the underlying matter, a licensing body is looking at whether a licensee can be trusted to be straight with it, and a missed disclosure speaks to precisely that.
Withheld adjudication is not the shield people think it is
A great deal of Florida criminal practice involves adjudication being withheld, and there is a widespread belief that this means nothing happened for licensing purposes.
Be careful with that. The separate disciplinary ground covering the crime itself applies where a licensee has been convicted or found guilty of, or entered a plea of nolo contendere to, regardless of adjudication, a crime in any jurisdiction which directly relates to the activities of a licensed broker or sales associate, or involves moral turpitude or fraudulent or dishonest dealing.
Two phrases there do a lot of work. Regardless of adjudication means a withheld adjudication does not remove the matter from consideration. And in any jurisdiction means an out of state matter is not outside the frame.
Note also that this ground and the reporting duty are not the same test. One is about the character of the crime; the other is about felonies and about whether you told them. It is entirely possible for a matter to engage one and not the other, which is exactly why this is a question for a lawyer rather than for an internet page.
What about an arrest, as opposed to a conviction?
The statutory reporting duty described above is framed around a plea or a finding of guilt rather than around being arrested. That is not, however, a reason to treat an arrest as nothing.
Applications and renewals ask questions about criminal history, and answering one of those inaccurately is its own serious problem. Brokerage policy may also require you to tell your broker about an arrest regardless of what the state requires. And practically, a matter that begins as an arrest may reach a plea while you are busy hoping it will not.
The sensible posture is to get advice early rather than to work out the minimum you can get away with disclosing.
Tell your broker, and do it early
Beyond the state, there is the firm. Your broker is responsible for the conduct of the licensees registered under them, and finding out about a matter from somebody else is a considerably worse start than hearing it from you.
There may also be practical consequences worth working through together: whether errors and omissions coverage is affected, whether association or MLS membership rules engage, and how anything is handled if it becomes public. Whether you have a manager you can have that conversation with candidly is exactly the structural question in why a non-competing manager changes everything.
The process that follows if a complaint or investigation does open is set out separately in what happens if a complaint is filed against you with FREC.
How this differs from getting licensed in the first place
If you are not yet licensed, the question is different: it is about whether a history prevents you being granted a license, which involves the application, the background check and the Commission's view of your character. That is covered in what disqualifies you from getting a Florida license, whether you can get licensed with a DUI, and the background check and fingerprinting process.
The obligation on this page is the ongoing one that continues for as long as you hold the license, and it is much less widely known.
The honest bottom line
If something happens, three things need to occur quickly: get your own lawyer, tell your broker, and make sure the written notification to the Commission goes in within the window if the matter engages it.
The underlying matter is what it is, and licensees do work through these situations. What turns a bad situation into a worse one is silence, because failing to report is a violation the statute names on its own, and it is the one that is hardest to explain later.
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