1.2 Candidate Qualifications, PSI Process & License Application

Why the exam and the license are two different filings

A passing PSI printout does not authorize you to call bids for another person for a fee in Illinois. 225 ILCS 407/10-5 is titled "Requirements for auctioneer license; application." The written exam is only paragraph (a)(4). IDFPR issues the credential after it receives a complete Department application, the statutory qualifications, and the fee. Exam items in this area punish two opposite mistakes: treating PSI as the license, and inventing extra Illinois gates (an 80-hour school, a surety bond, a real-estate broker license) that the Act does not impose on individual auctioneers.

Section 10-5(a): four requirements, not six

Every person who wants an auctioneer license shall:

1. Apply to the Department on forms provided by the Department, accompanied by the required fee. For an initial individual license that fee is $200 under 68 Ill. Adm. Code 1440.170(a)(1). The current individual exam-route form is IL 505-0790 (Auctioneer License Application). The form states that the application fee must accompany the application and is not refundable.
2. Be at least 18 years of age. Seventeen with a diploma is still too young. Rule 1440.110 and 1440.120 require certification that the applicant is 18.
3. Have attained a high school diploma or successfully completed an equivalent course of study determined by an examination conducted by the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE). A GED-style equivalent that ISBE recognizes counts. The PSI handbook restates this as a high school diploma or the equivalent.
4. Pass a written examination authorized by the Department to prove competence, including but not limited to general knowledge of Illinois and federal laws pertaining to personal property contracts, auctions, real property, ethics, and other topics relating to the auction business. That list is why the PSI outline is not "Illinois statutes only." Federal personal-property and auction-adjacent rules (including topics later chapters treat under the Uniform Commercial Code) are inside the statutory exam charge.

Those four are the statutory list. Illinois does not require pre-licensing classroom hours for this license. Illinois does not require an individual auctioneer to post a surety bond as a condition of 10-5(a). Both appear on other states' checklists and on some Illinois exams as distractors. Do not import them. (Firm licensure, sponsorship paperwork, and continuing education after you are licensed are separate later topics; they are not hidden 10-5(a) schooling or bonding requirements.)

What the PSI handbook adds before you sit

As a prerequisite for obtaining a license, the handbook tells the applicant to be at least 18, have a high school diploma or equivalent, take and pass the state examination, and submit a Consent to Examine and Audit Special Accounts form (printed at the back of the handbook). That consent is how IDFPR later inspects auction special accounts. Skipping it is not a shortcut; it is an incomplete file.

You schedule with PSI (online, telephone, fax, or mail). You pay the handbook's $37 exam fee to PSI, not to IDFPR. After identification and fingerprinting you may take an untimed computer practice session that does not count against the 1-hour exam. After the scored exam, PSI presents personal-history screening questions (diploma/GED, felony convictions, crimes of which dishonesty is an essential element, prior auctioneer licensure, license denials or discipline, other-than-honorable discharge, child-support arrears of more than 30 days, and Illinois tax arrears). Those answers travel with your licensing file. They are not a second graded test, but false answers are a fitness problem.

The handbook also repeats that you are not required to report certain records that match the spirit of 10-5(b), including specified age-17-before-January 1, 2014 records, arrests not followed by a charge or conviction, dismissed charges (with a practice-related caveat in the handbook language), sealed or expunged convictions or arrests, convictions overturned by a higher court, and most juvenile adjudications before age 18 other than a short list of extremely serious offenses. Use the statute, not a guess, when a question asks what IDFPR will not consider.

After you pass: IDFPR application, $200, score report

Form IL 505-0790's instructions are blunt: attach your PSI Exam Report as proof of passing, and submit a $200 application fee via ePay, check, or money order payable to IDFPR. Passing and then waiting indefinitely without filing does not create a license. Reciprocity without examination is a different path under 10-45 (Chapter 4); the default exam-route candidate must still prove the PSI pass to the Division of Real Estate.

68 Ill. Adm. Code 1440.120 lists what the individual application contains: name, address, telephone number, Social Security number and date of birth, certification of age 18, certification of high school graduation or equivalent, the fee, a properly completed sponsor card issued under the administrative rules, proof of successful completion of the examination unless a reciprocity exemption applies, and other fitness information the Division requires (personal history, criminal record, Illinois tax delinquency, student-loan delinquency, court-ordered child-support delinquency). Section 10-35 of the Act, which once spoke to sponsor cards in the statute itself, is repealed. Current practice still uses the sponsor-card rule and form; do not cite repealed 10-35 as live statutory text. The 3-year and 5-year clocks below are the live Rule 1440.120 points this chapter must lock in.

Three-year completion window and five-year audit

Rule 1440.120(d): all applicants have 3 years after the date of application to complete the application process. If the process is not completed in that window, the application shall be denied, the fee shall be forfeited, and the person must reapply and meet the requirements in effect at the time of reapplication. Old forms, old fees, and an old exam pass do not freeze the rules if you let the file die.

Rule 1440.120(c): all information provided by an applicant is subject to audit by the Division within 5 years from the date the application was received. A diploma claim, an age claim, or a criminal-history answer can be checked years after the pocket card arrives.

Section 10-5(b): records IDFPR will not require or consider

The Department shall not require applicants to report the following and shall not consider them in connection with an application:

The exam will offer a sealed misdemeanor, a dismissed arrest, or a juvenile adjudication as if it were an automatic bar. Under 10-5(b) those records are off the application table. That is not a hiding place for an unsealed adult felony of dishonesty; those remain reportable fitness facts.

Section 10-5(c): 30-day reporting during licensure

An applicant or licensee shall report to the Department, in the manner the Department prescribes, and within 30 days after the occurrence if during the term of licensure:

• (i) any conviction of, or plea of guilty or nolo contendere to, forgery, embezzlement, obtaining money under false pretenses, larceny, extortion, conspiracy to defraud, or any similar offense, or any conviction of a felony involving moral turpitude; or
• (ii) the entry of an administrative sanction by a government agency in this State or any other jurisdiction that has as an essential element dishonesty or fraud, or that involves larceny, embezzlement, or obtaining money, property, or credit by false pretenses.

The 30-day clock is a reporting duty, not a grace period in which the conduct is lawful. Waiting until the next biennial renewal is a 10-5(c) failure. Parking tickets and ordinary traffic matters are not on this list. Address and email changes are a different 14-day duty under 10-22, taught with renewal practice in a later chapter.

Realistic PSI-style scenarios

Scenario D — extra gates. Priya finished an 80-hour auction school in another state and can post a $10,000 bond. She is 19 and has a diploma. Illinois still requires her to satisfy 10-5(a): Department application and fee, age 18, diploma or ISBE equivalent, and the written exam (unless she later qualifies for reciprocity under 10-45). The school hours and the bond do not replace 10-5(a).

Scenario E — sealed record. Omar's only criminal history is a sealed conviction. Under 10-5(b)(6), IDFPR shall not require him to report it and shall not consider it. A question that treats every past case file as a mandatory disclosure is wrong.

Scenario F — stale application. After passing PSI, Chen files IL 505-0790 with $200 but never returns a missing sponsor-card form. Three years after the application date, Rule 1440.120(d) requires denial and fee forfeiture. Chen must reapply under the rules then in force.

Scenario G — late crime report. Licensed auctioneer Dee pleads guilty to obtaining money under false pretenses and tells IDFPR at renewal 11 months later. Section 10-5(c) required a report within 30 days after the occurrence during licensure.