www2.dre.ca.gov

ca-real-estate-license-verify

Installation

Adds this website's skill for your agents

 

Summary

Verify a California real estate license number against the CA Department of Real Estate public lookup and return licensee name, type (BROKER/SALESPERSON/CORPORATION), status, expiration, addresses, NMLS endorsement, affiliated entities, and any public disciplinary actions with hearing PDF links.

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SKILL.md
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California DRE Real Estate License Verification

Purpose

Verify a California real estate license number against the California Department of Real Estate (DRE) public license lookup and return the licensee's structured record: name, license type (BROKER / SALESPERSON / CORPORATION), status, expiration date, issue date(s), main office address, mailing address, MLO/NMLS endorsement, affiliated entities, and any public disciplinary actions or comments (with links to hearing PDFs when present). Strictly read-only — the public lookup is unauthenticated.

When to Use

  • A consumer or compliance system wants to confirm that an agent / broker / corporation holds an active CA real estate license.
  • A vendor onboarding flow needs to verify license #, expiration, and clean discipline status before allowing transactions.
  • A title / escrow / lender workflow needs the MLO (NMLS) endorsement number associated with a CA broker.
  • A due-diligence agent wants the full public record (former names, DBAs, affiliated corporations, disciplinary history with hearing PDFs).

Workflow

Optimal path: a single HTTP GET. No form submission needed. The public form (pplinfo.asp) accepts the License ID directly as a query parameter, and the server returns the rendered license record on the same URL. Skip the POST form entirely.

  1. Construct the request URL. California DRE license numbers are exactly 8 digits, zero-padded (e.g. 01258261). Build:

    https://www2.dre.ca.gov/publicasp/pplinfo.asp?License_id=01258261

    The parameter name is case-sensitive: License_id (only the L is capitalized). LICENSE_ID works in the POST form but License_id is the canonical GET form used by the site's own outbound links.

  2. Fetch over plain HTTPS. No headers, cookies, user-agent stealth, or session required. The endpoint is IIS / classic ASP, returns Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8, and sets a session cookie you can ignore. Status is always 200 even for not-found (see Site-Specific Gotchas).

  3. Detect the response shape first — the same URL serves two layouts:

    • Found → response body contains <strong>License Type:</strong>. Continue to step 4.
    • Not found → response body contains No matching public record was found for License ID:. Return { found: false, license_id, error: "..." } and stop.

  4. Parse the result table. The licensee data is a single <table> with <tr> rows where the first <td> is a bolded label (e.g. <strong>License Type:</strong>) and the second <td> is the value. Strip the heavy <FONT FACE="..."> wrappers — they're cosmetic noise from a 2010-era template. Map labels to fields:

    Label in HTMLField
    License Type:license_type — one of BROKER, SALESPERSON, CORPORATION
    Name:name — "Last, First Middle" for persons; full entity name for corps
    Mailing Address:mailing_address (multiline; join <br/> with \n)
    License ID:license_id (8-digit string — preserve leading zeros)
    Expiration Date:expiration_date — MM/DD/YY (2-digit year, see gotcha)
    License Status:status — LICENSED, LICENSE EXPIRED, LICENSE CANCELED, LICENSE SURRENDERED, LICENSE SUSPENDED, LICENSE REVOKED, etc. See /static/licstatus.htm for the full enum
    MLO License Endorsement:mlo_nmls_id — extract numeric NMLS ID; null if absent
    Salesperson License Issued:salesperson_issued_date (broker / corp records may show prior salesperson date)
    Broker License Issued:broker_issued_date (broker only)
    Corporation License Issued:corporation_issued_date (corporation only)
    Former Name(s):former_names[] or string "NO FORMER NAMES"
    Main Office:main_office_address
    DBAdbas[] — each entry has a name and an "ACTIVE AS OF .." or "ACTIVE FROM .. TO .." date range
    Branches:branches[] or "NO CURRENT BRANCHES"
    Affiliated Licensed Corporation(s):affiliated_corporations[] — broker only — {license_id, name, officer_expiration_date, status?}
    Licensed Officer(s):licensed_officers[] — corporation only — {role?, license_id, name, expiration_date, status?}
    Broker Associates: / Salespersons:broker_associates[] / salespersons[] — corporation only — {license_id, name, expiration_date}
    Broker Associate for: / Former Broker Associate for:broker_associate_for[] / former_broker_associate_for[] — list of brokerages the person is currently / formerly affiliated with
    Comment:comments[] — each row is a separate event; first row is either NO DISCIPLINARY ACTION or a dated discipline event. Look for NO OTHER PUBLIC COMMENTS as the terminator
    Disciplinary or Formal Action Documents:disciplinary_documents[] — array of {filename, url} pointing to /hearingfiles/*.pdf. Only appears when discipline exists.

  5. Return a Zod-validated object. See Expected Output for the canonical shape. disciplinary_documents and comments fields where they exist are the primary signal of disciplinary history — the existence of any non-empty PDF entry, or any comments[] entry that doesn't equal "NO DISCIPLINARY ACTION" / "NO OTHER PUBLIC COMMENTS", indicates discipline.

Browser fallback

Use only if the fetch path returns 5xx or you cannot run an HTTPS client:

  1. Navigate to https://www2.dre.ca.gov/publicasp/pplinfo.asp.
  2. Find the form input with name="LICENSE_ID" (uppercase here — the POST form uses a different case than the GET param). Type the 8-digit license number.
  3. Click the submit button (<input type="submit" value="Find">).
  4. The form POSTs to pplinfo.asp?start=1 with hidden field h_nextstep=SEARCH. Wait for the response — it's a full server-rendered page replace.
  5. Parse the same table layout described above.

The form has three text inputs (LICENSEE_NAME, CITY_STATE, LICENSE_ID) — only LICENSE_ID is needed for license-number lookup. LICENSEE_NAME searches by name and returns a results list, which is a different workflow (not covered here).

Site-Specific Gotchas

  • The endpoint always returns HTTP 200, even for not-found. Discriminate on body content (No matching public record was found for License ID:), not status code.
  • License_id (query param) vs LICENSE_ID (form field) — the GET URL uses mixed-case License_id; the POST form uses uppercase LICENSE_ID. Both work but the canonical GET style is what the site's own internal links use (e.g. <A HREF="/publicasp/pplinfo.asp?License_id=01769292">).
  • License IDs are 8-digit zero-padded strings, not integers. 01258261 ≠ 1258261. The form input has maxlength="8". Preserve leading zeros.
  • Expiration / issue dates use 2-digit years (05/19/28). Disambiguate yourself — anything <25 is generally 21st century and >=80 20th century, but mixing in the page is unavoidable. Don't try to "fix" them — store the raw string.
  • The HTML is from a 2010-era classic ASP template. Every cell is wrapped in nested <FONT FACE="Arial,Helvetica" size=2>…</FONT> tags with frequently missing close tags. Use a tolerant HTML parser (cheerio, parse5, BeautifulSoup, etc.) — regex extraction is fragile. Strip nested font/br noise during normalization.
  • The "new" lookup site pplinfo2.dre.ca.gov appears in search results (e.g. https://pplinfo2.dre.ca.gov/PPLInfo/PplInfoStart?LicenseID=…) and an HTML comment in the legacy page references a redirect to it (<!-- Redirect to new PPL INFO <meta http-equiv="refresh"...> -->) — but the redirect is commented out and the new endpoint returns 500 Internal Server Error as of 2026-05. Stick with www2.dre.ca.gov/publicasp/pplinfo.asp. If the new site comes back online, the URL param name there is LicenseID (different casing again).
  • Disciplinary action documents only render when discipline exists. Absence of the Disciplinary or Formal Action Documents: row is not an error — it means clean record. Cross-check with the Comment: section: NO DISCIPLINARY ACTION confirms clean.
  • The Comment: section is unstructured prose, dated by line. Example: 04/23/21 - H-41938 LA (case filed), 03/08/22 - REVOKED-RIGHT TO RESTRICTED LICENSE PER H-41938 LA, 09/17/24 - PETITION FOR REINSTATMENT OF BROKER LICENSE GRANTED PER H-41938 LA. Treat each row as a free-text event keyed by the leading MM/DD/YY token, plus a final literal row NO OTHER PUBLIC COMMENTS.
  • License Status string values are not normalized to title case — the page returns LICENSED (with trailing space) or LICENSE EXPIRED etc. Trim before comparing. Reference https://www2.dre.ca.gov/static/licstatus.htm for the canonical enum if you need to map to a known set.
  • The CORPORATION shape is structurally different from BROKER/SALESPERSON. Corporations have Licensed Officer(s): (designated + non-designated), Broker Associates:, and Salespersons: rows that brokers/salespeople do not. The Zod schema in output_schema.ts treats all three as a discriminated union on license_type.
  • No anti-bot, no captcha, no rate-limit observed during testing. Direct fetch is safe. Don't waste budget on --verified or --proxies — confirmed unnecessary.
  • Server cookies (ASPSESSIONIDxxx) are sent on every response. You can ignore them entirely for single-license lookups; they're only relevant for the multi-step search-by-name flow.
  • A salesperson license that has been disciplined or has many affiliations can return a very large HTML body (one test license returned ~400 KB). Make sure your fetch buffer / streaming can handle it.

Expected Output

The canonical shape is a discriminated union on license_type. Validated by the OutputSchema exported from output_schema.ts.

Outcome 1: Not found

{
  "found": false,
  "license_id": "99999999",
  "error": "No matching public record was found for License ID: 99999999."
}

Outcome 2: BROKER (clean)

{
  "found": true,
  "license_id": "01258261",
  "license_type": "BROKER",
  "name": "Householder, Ron E",
  "status": "LICENSED",
  "expiration_date": "05/19/28",
  "mailing_address": "13001 SEAL BEACH BLVD #210\nSEAL BEACH, CA  90740",
  "main_office_address": "13001 SEAL BEACH BLVD STE 210\nSEAL BEACH, CA  90740-2754",
  "salesperson_issued_date": "06/10/99",
  "broker_issued_date": "05/20/00",
  "mlo_nmls_id": "302207",
  "former_names": [],
  "dbas": [
    { "name": "1st Realty Financial", "status": "ACTIVE AS OF 05/14/2012" },
    { "name": "Opendoor", "status": "ACTIVE AS OF 01/04/2019" }
  ],
  "branches": [],
  "affiliated_corporations": [
    { "license_id": "01769292", "name": "Endeavor Mortgage Group Inc", "officer_expiration_date": "08/22/26" }
  ],
  "former_broker_associate_for": [
    { "license_id": "01821150", "name": "Weaver, Samuel John", "from": "05/04/2023", "to": "10/03/2023" }
  ],
  "comments": ["NO DISCIPLINARY ACTION", "NO OTHER PUBLIC COMMENTS"],
  "disciplinary_documents": [],
  "has_discipline": false
}

Outcome 3: BROKER with disciplinary history

{
  "found": true,
  "license_id": "01874798",
  "license_type": "BROKER",
  "name": "Kung, Ivy Hsiang Ju",
  "status": "LICENSED",
  "expiration_date": "02/02/29",
  "mlo_nmls_id": "395881",
  "comments": [
    "04/23/21 - H-41938 LA",
    "03/08/22 - REVOKED-RIGHT TO RESTRICTED LICENSE  PER H-41938 LA",
    "09/17/24 - PETITION FOR REINSTATMENT OF BROKER LICENSE   GRANTED PER H- 41938 LA",
    "11/21/24 - PETITION FOR REINSTATMENT OF MLO ENDORSEMENT  GRANTED PER H- 41938 LA",
    "02/03/25 - H-41938 LA  RELEASED",
    "NO OTHER PUBLIC COMMENTS"
  ],
  "disciplinary_documents": [
    { "filename": "H41938LA_210423_P.pdf", "url": "https://www2.dre.ca.gov/hearingfiles/H41938LA_210423_P.pdf" },
    { "filename": "H41938LA_220308_P.pdf", "url": "https://www2.dre.ca.gov/hearingfiles/H41938LA_220308_P.pdf" },
    { "filename": "H41938LA_240917_P.pdf", "url": "https://www2.dre.ca.gov/hearingfiles/H41938LA_240917_P.pdf" },
    { "filename": "H41938LA_241121_P.pdf", "url": "https://www2.dre.ca.gov/hearingfiles/H41938LA_241121_P.pdf" }
  ],
  "has_discipline": true
}

Outcome 4: CORPORATION

{
  "found": true,
  "license_id": "01769292",
  "license_type": "CORPORATION",
  "name": "Endeavor Mortgage Group Inc",
  "status": "LICENSED",
  "expiration_date": "08/22/26",
  "corporation_issued_date": "08/23/06",
  "mlo_nmls_id": "355050",
  "licensed_officers": [
    { "role": "DESIGNATED OFFICER", "license_id": "01258261", "name": "Householder, Ron E", "expiration_date": "08/22/26" },
    { "license_id": "01471454", "name": "Wright, Christopher David", "expiration_date": "08/22/10", "status": "OFFICER LICENSE EXPIRED AS OF 08/23/10" }
  ],
  "broker_associates": [
    { "license_id": "01022584", "name": "Sweeney, Edward Michael", "expiration_date": "06/19/2029" }
  ],
  "salespersons": [
    { "license_id": "01894880", "name": "Ainslie, Brian Edward", "expiration_date": "05/12/2027" }
  ],
  "comments": ["NO DISCIPLINARY ACTION", "NO OTHER PUBLIC COMMENTS"],
  "disciplinary_documents": [],
  "has_discipline": false
}

Assumptions (documented per spec):

  • "Disciplinary actions" includes both unstructured Comment: rows AND linked PDFs under Disciplinary or Formal Action Documents: — both are surfaced. has_discipline is true iff either a non-trivial comment OR any PDF exists.
  • "Status" returned to caller is the raw License Status: cell value, trimmed. Caller can map to a normalized enum if needed.
  • Salesperson lookups follow the same BROKER schema minus the broker/officer-specific fields — represented as license_type: "SALESPERSON" in the discriminated union.
California DRE Real Estate License Verification · browse.sh