11400 – Legal & Compliance (Agency Practice)

Legal & Compliance is the branch underlying every other branch in this taxonomy, not just this one — agency law and contracts set out the legal relationships and documents a transaction runs on; consumer protection is the general conduct standard referenced from advertising through to negotiation elsewhere in this series; trust accounting is the single least forgiving compliance domain across the whole 10000-branch; dispute resolution covers what happens when something goes wrong; and licensing and CPD is the credentialing framework that makes an agent an agent in the first place.

Agency Law (11410) is the foundational relationship every other component assumes; Contracts (11420) is the document that relationship produces. Consumer Protection (11430) is the general conduct standard overlaying both, and the same standard cited repeatedly by name across the Sales & Marketing and Technology & Tools branches. Trust Accounting Compliance (11440) is the narrowest, most strictly enforced compliance domain within that broader standard, reflecting how directly client money is at stake. Dispute Resolution & Complaints Handling (11450) is the process for when any of the above breaks down. Real Estate Licensing & CPD (11460) is the credentialing and ongoing-education framework tying the whole branch together — and, not coincidentally, its mandatory CPD topics tend to cover exactly the domains named elsewhere in this branch.