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www2.dre.ca.gov

ca-real-estate-license-verify

Installation

Adds this website's skill for your agents

 

Summary

Verify a California Department of Real Estate license number against the DRE public license lookup. Returns licensee name, type (salesperson/broker/corporation), status, expiration, mailing address, affiliated entities, and disciplinary-action history. Zod-validated. Read-only.

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SKILL.md
375 lines

California DRE Real Estate License Verification

Purpose

Given an 8-digit California Department of Real Estate (DRE) license ID, return the licensee's name, license type (SALESPERSON | BROKER | CORPORATION), status, expiration date, mailing address, license-issued date, and any disciplinary-action comments. Read-only — never modifies any DRE record.

The skill targets the public license lookup at www2.dre.ca.gov/publicasp/pplinfo.asp — the same surface DRE links to from its "Verify a License" consumer page. No authentication, cookies, or anti-bot stealth is required.

When to Use

  • A consumer or compliance flow verifying that a CA real-estate licensee is currently licensed before transacting.
  • A brokerage onboarding agents and confirming each rep's license status + responsible-broker affiliation.
  • A title/escrow workflow validating the listing agent's license number against name on a purchase contract.
  • Background-check / due-diligence pipelines pulling disciplinary-action records.

Workflow

The public lookup serves the full record over plain HTTP GET — the form on pplinfo.asp is cosmetic. A single request retrieves the same HTML the form-POST flow produces.

Recommended: Single HTTP GET deep-link

curl -s "https://www2.dre.ca.gov/publicasp/pplinfo.asp?License_id=01400000"

Or via browse cloud fetch (no --proxies, no --verified — the site has no anti-bot):

browse cloud fetch "https://www2.dre.ca.gov/publicasp/pplinfo.asp?License_id=${ID}"

The response is a ~5–10 KB HTML page (200 OK, Content-Type: text/html, Server: Microsoft-IIS/10.0, X-Powered-By: ASP.NET). The license-information table sits between the License Type: label and the >>>> Public information request complete <<<< sentinel.

  1. Build the URL. https://www2.dre.ca.gov/publicasp/pplinfo.asp?License_id={ID} where {ID} is the license number. Param name is case-insensitive — License_id, license_id, LICENSE_ID, and the URL-encoded form License%5Fid all work. Zero-padding to 8 digits is conventional but not required (1400000 and 01400000 both resolve; more than 8 digits returns NOTFOUND).

  2. Send a plain GET. No headers required. Session cookies (ASPSESSIONID*) are issued but not validated for License_id= queries.

  3. Detect NOTFOUND. If the response contains the substring No matching public record was found for License ID: → emit { "found": false, "license_id": "..." }. The HTML returns the search form, not a 404 status; success/failure must be detected from the body.

  4. Extract fields. All fields live in a <table> of <tr valign="top"><td><strong>Label:</strong></td><td>Value</td></tr> rows. Some labels are wrapped in <A HREF> (License Status, Comment, {Type} License Issued, Former Responsible Broker). Multi-line values use <br/> separators (e.g., address line 1 <br/> city/state/zip).

    Reliable regex per field (case-insensitive, dot-all):

    const grab = (label) => {
  const re = new RegExp(
    `<strong>(?:<a[^>]*>)?${label}(?:</a>)?:</strong>[^]*?size=2>([^<]+)`,
    'i'
  );
  const m = html.match(re);
  return m ? m[1].trim() : null;
};
const licenseType  = grab('License Type');     // "SALESPERSON" | "BROKER" | "CORPORATION"
const name         = grab('Name');
const licenseId    = grab('License ID');
const expiration   = grab('Expiration Date');  // "MM/DD/YY"
const status       = grab('License Status');   // see status enum below
const issuedDate   = grab('(?:Salesperson|Broker|Corporation) License Issued');
const comment      = grab('Comment');          // "NO DISCIPLINARY ACTION" or text
const mailingAddr  = grab('Mailing Address');  // "<line1><br/>CITY, ST ZIP"
const formerNames  = grab('Former Name\\(s\\)');

  5. Type-specific extras. Parse the type-specific blocks:

    • SALESPERSON → Responsible Broker row (linked License_id + brokerage name + address) and optional Former Responsible Broker rows.
    • BROKER (individual) → Affiliated Licensed Corporation(s) — one or more <A HREF="pplinfo.asp?License_id=NNNNNNNN">NNNNNNNN</A> links followed by the corporation name and expiration. Inactive officer affiliations carry an OFFICER LICENSE EXPIRED AS OF MM/DD/YY suffix.
    • CORPORATION → Licensed Officer(s) row containing DESIGNATED OFFICER and a linked License_id for the broker-officer.
    • All types → Main Office, DBA, Branches (corp/broker), NO OTHER PUBLIC COMMENTS sentinel.

  6. Detect disciplinary action. Two independent signals:

    • Comment: row ≠ literal string NO DISCIPLINARY ACTION → disciplined. The cell text is a free-form history (e.g., 06/15/81 - DENIED W/RTR LIC ON T/C PER H-1660 SAC). Multiple comment rows may follow.
    • License Status: value contains *** RESTRICTED *** (e.g., EXPIRED *** RESTRICTED ***) → restricted/disciplined.
    • Treat the licensee as having a disciplinary record if either signal fires. Pass the raw comment text(s) through.

  7. Stamp the as-of date. The page prints License information taken from records of the Department of Real Estate on M/D/YYYY H:MM:SS AM/PM — capture this for output provenance.

  8. Validate with Zod. A reference schema for the canonical output is in Expected Output. Apply at the boundary so downstream consumers get a stable shape regardless of which license-type variant came in.

Browser fallback — name search

When the caller only has a name (no license ID), use a browser session against the form:

SID=$(browse cloud sessions create --keep-alive | node -e "let s='';process.stdin.on('data',c=>s+=c).on('end',()=>process.stdout.write(JSON.parse(s).id))")
export BROWSE_SESSION="$SID"
browse open "https://www2.dre.ca.gov/publicasp/pplinfo.asp" --remote
browse wait load --remote
browse snapshot --remote   # textbox refs: LICENSEE_NAME, CITY_STATE, LICENSE_ID
# Use refs from the snapshot — typically [2-25] / [2-26] / [2-27] and Find button [2-341]
browse fill "@<NAME_REF>" "Last, First" --remote
browse click "@<FIND_BUTTON_REF>" --remote
browse wait load --remote
browse get markdown body --remote
browse cloud sessions update "$SID" --status REQUEST_RELEASE

The form is <form method="post" name="entry_form" action="pplinfo.asp?start=1"> with three text inputs (LICENSEE_NAME 40 chars, CITY_STATE 30 chars, LICENSE_ID 8 chars) and a hidden h_nextstep=SEARCH. A name search returns a results list (multiple matches) — click each row to reach the same single-license detail page the GET deep-link returns, then apply the parsing logic from steps 4–8.

Alternative direct-POST (no browser):

curl -s -X POST "https://www2.dre.ca.gov/publicasp/pplinfo.asp?start=1" \
  --data-urlencode "h_nextstep=SEARCH" \
  --data-urlencode "LICENSEE_NAME=Last, First" \
  --data-urlencode "CITY_STATE=" \
  --data-urlencode "LICENSE_ID="

(The form-POST returns the same HTML the browser does; the only reason to use a browser is when you need to click into a result row from the list.)

Site-Specific Gotchas

  • The form is cosmetic for ID lookups. pplinfo.asp?License_id={ID} (GET) returns the same detail page that the form's POST flow produces — no session cookie, no CSRF, no Referer required. Don't drive the form unless you need name search.
  • Plain HTTP, no anti-bot. The site is classic IIS/ASP. Bare curl works; do NOT use --proxies --verified — it just adds latency. Verified with direct browse cloud fetch from sandbox IP, 200 OK in ~200ms per request.
  • License_id param name is case-insensitive. License_id, license_id, LICENSE_ID, and License%5Fid (URL-encoded underscore — seen in DRE's own internal links) all resolve. Prefer License_id for consistency with DRE's published URLs.
  • Leading zeros optional, but >8 digits = NOTFOUND. 1400000 and 01400000 both resolve to the same record. 000001400000 (12 digits) returns NOTFOUND. Normalize input by stripping non-digits then accepting 1–8 digit values.
  • NOTFOUND is 200 OK, not 404. Detect failure from the body string No matching public record was found for License ID:, not from HTTP status. The not-found response also re-renders the search form above the message.
  • License Status enum is rich. Observed values: LICENSED, LICENSED NBA (broker with No Broker Affiliation — i.e., not currently sponsoring salespersons), EXPIRED, EXPIRED *** RESTRICTED ***, WITHHELD DENIED, plus less-common combos (*** RESTRICTED *** may appear with other prefixes). Treat anything containing *** RESTRICTED *** as a disciplinary signal; treat LICENSED (with or without NBA) as currently valid.
  • Expiration Date is not always a date. For records under temporary licenses it can be a sentence like Temporary License issued through 01/04/96. Schema must accept a free-form string here, not just MM/DD/YY.
  • Disciplinary signal lives in two places. The Comment: row carries the disciplinary history text (free-form, multi-line), and the License Status may also include *** RESTRICTED ***. Either-or — confirm with both. The literal sentinel for "no discipline" is exactly the string NO DISCIPLINARY ACTION; anything else in the Comment field is real discipline content.
  • Type-specific row sets differ. SALESPERSON has Responsible Broker (linked License_id of the brokerage). BROKER has Affiliated Licensed Corporation(s) (zero or more linked License_ids; expired ones tagged OFFICER LICENSE EXPIRED AS OF MM/DD/YY). CORPORATION has Licensed Officer(s) with a DESIGNATED OFFICER linked License_id. Don't assume all rows exist on every record.
  • Multi-value cells use <br/>. Mailing-address and former-DBA cells concatenate lines with <br/> and no comma — 109 BAYSIDE PL<br/>CORONA DEL MAR, CA 92625. Split on <br/> and re-assemble for normalization.
  • License Issued row is type-prefixed and "Unofficial" for old records. Field is labelled Salesperson License Issued, Broker License Issued, or Corporation License Issued. For pre-1980-ish issuances, value carries the suffix (Unofficial -- taken from secondary records). Strip the suffix or surface it as a confidence flag.
  • Page footer "Public information request complete" sentinel. The literal string >>>> Public information request complete <<<< always terminates a successful response. Useful as a parsing fence and as a signal that the page rendered fully.
  • As-of timestamp is in the page body. License information taken from records of the Department of Real Estate on M/D/YYYY H:MM:SS AM/PM — capture for provenance. DRE notes it does not include pending licensing changes.
  • There is a separate site at pplinfo2.dre.ca.gov. The current pplinfo.asp HTML has a commented-out <meta http-equiv="refresh"> pointing at https://pplinfo2.dre.ca.gov/. It's not active today (2026-05-26) — the comment confirms it was disabled. If DRE re-enables the redirect, the new site's URL pattern may differ; check for a redirect before assuming this skill still works.
  • No formal rate limit observed, but keep requests ≤ 2 req/s — this is a state government IIS box. The ASP session cookie issued on each request is not validated for License_id= lookups but holding requests to a polite rate is courteous.
  • Disciplinary-action documents are not on this page. The DRE main site links to PDFs under /Licensees/DisciplinaryActions.html, but those are not cross-referenced from the per-license detail page. The Comment: field summarizes discipline; full case documents must be fetched separately if needed.
  • Address-lookup is a different surface. The form links to https://secure.dre.ca.gov/addresslookup for searching by office address — distinct skill, not covered here.

Expected Output

Zod-validated shape (TypeScript reference):

import { z } from 'zod';

const AffiliatedEntity = z.object({
  license_id: z.string(),
  name: z.string(),
  expiration_date: z.string().nullable(),
  active: z.boolean(),                      // false if marked "OFFICER LICENSE EXPIRED AS OF ..."
  expired_as_of: z.string().nullable(),     // present when active === false
});

const DRELicenseRecord = z.discriminatedUnion('found', [
  z.object({
    found: z.literal(false),
    license_id: z.string(),                 // echoed back from the input
    as_of: z.string(),                      // server-side "License information taken from records ... on M/D/YYYY ..." capture
  }),
  z.object({
    found: z.literal(true),
    license_id: z.string(),                 // canonical 8-digit form
    license_type: z.enum(['SALESPERSON', 'BROKER', 'CORPORATION']),
    name: z.string(),
    mailing_address: z.string(),            // raw multi-line concatenated
    expiration_date: z.string(),            // "MM/DD/YY" or free-form sentence for temporary licenses
    license_status: z.string(),             // e.g. "LICENSED", "LICENSED NBA", "EXPIRED", "EXPIRED *** RESTRICTED ***", "WITHHELD DENIED"
    issued_date: z.string().nullable(),     // "MM/DD/YY"; may carry "(Unofficial -- taken from secondary records)" suffix
    issued_date_unofficial: z.boolean(),
    former_names: z.array(z.string()),      // [] if "NO FORMER NAMES"
    main_office: z.string().nullable(),     // present for BROKER/CORPORATION
    dbas: z.array(z.string()),              // [] if "NO CURRENT DBAS"
    branches: z.array(z.string()),          // [] if "NO CURRENT BRANCHES"
    // Type-specific blocks:
    responsible_broker: AffiliatedEntity.nullable(),       // SALESPERSON only
    former_responsible_brokers: z.array(AffiliatedEntity), // SALESPERSON only
    affiliated_corporations: z.array(AffiliatedEntity),    // BROKER only
    licensed_officers: z.array(AffiliatedEntity),          // CORPORATION only
    // Discipline:
    has_disciplinary_action: z.boolean(),   // status contains "*** RESTRICTED ***" OR comment != "NO DISCIPLINARY ACTION"
    is_restricted: z.boolean(),             // status contains "*** RESTRICTED ***"
    disciplinary_comments: z.array(z.string()), // [] if "NO DISCIPLINARY ACTION"
    other_public_comments: z.array(z.string()), // entries between "Comment:" block and the sentinel
    as_of: z.string(),                      // server-side timestamp from page body
  }),
]);

Example: active SALESPERSON (no discipline)

{
  "found": true,
  "license_id": "01400000",
  "license_type": "SALESPERSON",
  "name": "Cohen, Matthew Jacob",
  "mailing_address": "3232 QUANDT ROAD, LAFAYETTE, CA 94549",
  "expiration_date": "08/02/28",
  "license_status": "LICENSED",
  "issued_date": "11/08/03",
  "issued_date_unofficial": false,
  "former_names": ["Cohen, Matthew Jacob"],
  "main_office": null,
  "dbas": [],
  "branches": [],
  "responsible_broker": {
    "license_id": "01999173",
    "name": "Synesis Advisors, Inc.",
    "expiration_date": null,
    "active": true,
    "expired_as_of": null
  },
  "former_responsible_brokers": [
    {
      "license_id": "01999173",
      "name": "Synesis Advisors, Inc. (08/03/2020–02/05/2024)",
      "expiration_date": null,
      "active": false,
      "expired_as_of": null
    }
  ],
  "affiliated_corporations": [],
  "licensed_officers": [],
  "has_disciplinary_action": false,
  "is_restricted": false,
  "disciplinary_comments": [],
  "other_public_comments": [],
  "as_of": "5/26/2026 9:49:04 AM"
}

Example: active BROKER with multiple affiliated corporations

{
  "found": true,
  "license_id": "00372156",
  "license_type": "BROKER",
  "name": "Moss, Jay Lawrence",
  "mailing_address": "109 BAYSIDE PL, CORONA DEL MAR, CA 92625",
  "expiration_date": "02/15/28",
  "license_status": "LICENSED",
  "issued_date": "08/31/73",
  "issued_date_unofficial": true,
  "former_names": [],
  "main_office": "109 BAYSIDE PL, CORONA DEL MAR, CA 92625",
  "dbas": ["Development Dimensions (ACTIVE FROM 11/03/1975 TO 04/30/1993)"],
  "branches": [],
  "responsible_broker": null,
  "former_responsible_brokers": [],
  "affiliated_corporations": [
    { "license_id": "01527203", "name": "Real Estate Dimensions, Inc.", "expiration_date": "12/01/27", "active": true,  "expired_as_of": null },
    { "license_id": "00242327", "name": "KB HOME Sales-Southern California Inc", "expiration_date": "02/02/91", "active": false, "expired_as_of": "02/03/91" },
    { "license_id": "00746787", "name": "Housing Dimensions Inc", "expiration_date": "08/14/87", "active": false, "expired_as_of": "08/15/87" }
  ],
  "licensed_officers": [],
  "has_disciplinary_action": false,
  "is_restricted": false,
  "disciplinary_comments": [],
  "other_public_comments": [],
  "as_of": "5/26/2026 9:46:13 AM"
}

Example: CORPORATION with designated officer

{
  "found": true,
  "license_id": "01527203",
  "license_type": "CORPORATION",
  "name": "Real Estate Dimensions, Inc.",
  "mailing_address": "109 BAYSIDE PL, CORONA DEL MAR, CA 92625",
  "expiration_date": "12/01/27",
  "license_status": "LICENSED",
  "issued_date": "12/02/15",
  "issued_date_unofficial": false,
  "former_names": [],
  "main_office": "109 BAYSIDE PL, CORONA DEL MAR, CA 92625",
  "dbas": [],
  "branches": [],
  "responsible_broker": null,
  "former_responsible_brokers": [],
  "affiliated_corporations": [],
  "licensed_officers": [
    {
      "license_id": "00372156",
      "name": "Moss, Jay Lawrence (DESIGNATED OFFICER)",
      "expiration_date": "12/01/27",
      "active": true,
      "expired_as_of": null
    }
  ],
  "has_disciplinary_action": false,
  "is_restricted": false,
  "disciplinary_comments": [],
  "other_public_comments": [],
  "as_of": "5/26/2026 9:45:55 AM"
}

Example: restricted / disciplined SALESPERSON

{
  "found": true,
  "license_id": "00800000",
  "license_type": "SALESPERSON",
  "name": "Hasek, Donna Marie",
  "mailing_address": "ONE MANDARIN, IRVINE, CA 92714",
  "expiration_date": "05/28/96",
  "license_status": "EXPIRED *** RESTRICTED ***",
  "issued_date": "06/15/81",
  "issued_date_unofficial": true,
  "former_names": [],
  "main_office": null,
  "dbas": [],
  "branches": [],
  "responsible_broker": null,
  "former_responsible_brokers": [],
  "affiliated_corporations": [],
  "licensed_officers": [],
  "has_disciplinary_action": true,
  "is_restricted": true,
  "disciplinary_comments": ["06/15/81 - DENIED W/RTR LIC ON T/C PER H-1660 SAC"],
  "other_public_comments": [],
  "as_of": "5/26/2026 9:48:17 AM"
}

Example: not found

{
  "found": false,
  "license_id": "02000000",
  "as_of": "5/26/2026 9:48:00 AM"
}
California DRE Real Estate License Verification · browse.sh