Competency Unit 1
Real Estate Agency Industry Overview and Basic Land Law Concepts
Who may act, what a licence and a registration each permit, how the market is segmented and measured, and the land law concepts every later unit assumes.
Built for the RES examination syllabus that applies from 1 January 2027. CEA has published a revised syllabus for examinations from that date. Examinations held in 2026 and earlier use the RES Examination Syllabus 2017 instead. The remaining 2026 papers are sat on 31 October 2026 and 1 November 2026; if that is your sitting, treat this as revision of the law rather than as a rehearsal of your blueprint, because the two syllabuses examine the same statutes under a different structure.
What changed between the two syllabuses · CEA's own statement of which syllabus applies
What CEA expects of you here
Most of this unit — 33 of 41 outcomes — is examined at Level 2, understanding.
| Cognitive level | Outcomes | Share of the unit |
|---|---|---|
| Level 1 — Remembering | 3 | 7% |
| Level 2 — Understanding | 33 | 80% |
| Level 3 — Applying | 5 | 12% |
The registration of titles material is the deepest part of this unit in Freehold's bank, and it is where a candidate trained on another country's recording system goes wrong: under the Land Titles Act notice does not defeat a registered title, priority runs by order of registration rather than by the date on the instrument, and no title comes from adverse possession.
Topics in this unit
8 syllabus topics, 11.0 recommended teaching hours, 41 published learning outcomes, and 123 Freehold questions of which 14 are Section B.
| Topic | Recommended hours | Learning outcomes | Freehold questions |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.1 | 1.5 | 8 | 22 |
| 1.2 | 1.0 | 4 | 11 |
| 1.3 | 1.5 | 4 | 7 |
| 1.4 | 2.0 | 4 | 11 |
| 1.5 | 1.0 | 1 | 8 |
| 1.6 | 1.0 | 6 | 24 |
| 1.7 | 1.5 | 9 | 14 |
| 1.8 | 1.5 | 5 | 26 |
Hours and learning outcomes are CEA's, from the examination syllabus. Question counts are Freehold's own bank. You can drill any single topic in this unit from the practice page.
Unit 1 questions
How many questions does Unit 1 carry in the examination?
CEA publishes no per-unit question count. What it does publish is a recommended 11.0 hours of teaching for this unit, which is 14.86% of the course. Freehold uses that as a documented proxy for how many questions a practice paper draws from each unit, and labels it as a proxy rather than as a published weight, because it is one.
Which paper is Unit 1 in?
Paper 1. The two papers are sat separately and a pass in one carries forward on its own, so you can concentrate on the paper you have not yet cleared.
What is a cognitive level?
CEA states, against every learning outcome, the depth of knowledge expected: Level 1 remembering, Level 2 understanding, Level 3 applying. It is the syllabus's own statement of whether a topic is examined by recall or by working through a client's situation, and it is a better guide to how to study than any difficulty label a practice provider assigns.
Free practice, no account needed
Every RES question cites the Act, regulation or CEA page it comes from, with the section and the date we checked it. No ads, no subscriptions.
RES practice runs here in your browser today. Freehold RES is also available on the App Store with the same bank, the same citations and offline practice.
