California AB 723.
What the statute requires, what an audit looks like, and how SEAREI ships the four artifacts in one delivery.
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California Business and Professions Code §10140.8.
Added by AB 723 (Pellerin), effective January 1, 2026. As of May 2026, the operative provision reads:
A real estate licensee who publishes a digitally altered photograph of real property in a listing or advertisement shall include a clear and conspicuous disclosure that the photograph has been digitally altered, and shall make the original, unaltered photograph available to a prospective buyer or transferee through an internet website or other publicly accessible source identified in the listing or advertisement.
“Digitally altered” includes furniture insertion, flooring substitution, paint-color changes, landscaping modifications, and views through windows. Willful violation is a crime under California Real Estate Law (Bus. & Prof. Code §10185).
What an AB 723 audit looks like.
The California Department of Real Estate (DRE) has investigative authority over deceptive marketing under Bus. & Prof. Code §10176. In practice, the first contact is an email from an MLS compliance officer, three to six months after the listing closed, asking for the original photo, the disclosure label as it appeared, the date the staging was applied, and the rule it complied with. The MLS gives the agent 48 hours to produce the documentation. Civil exposure for misrepresentation also exists under Cal. Civ. Code §§1709–1710. If the documentation isn’t produced, the listing is removed, the agent receives sanctions, and the brokerage receives a letter.
The wording SEAREI applies.
Virtually staged / digitally altered. Original, unaltered image available at the verification URL or via the QR code.
Four concrete artifacts per job.
- Disclosure-labeled export. Every staged photo ships with the §10140.8 disclosure language placed on or adjacent to the image.
- Original photo on a permanent public URL. The unaltered original is hosted at
app.searei.com/verify/[job-id]and remains accessible without a SEAREI account. - Immutable compliance certificate. Tamper-evident HTML certificate retained permanently with a SHA-256 manifest, the disclosure text used, the timestamps of staging and delivery, and the job ID.
- Forensic audit trail. Every state transition on the listing — upload, overlay applied, certificate generated, re-rendered after revisions — is recorded with a server timestamp and surfaced through the verification URL, so a DRE or MLS compliance officer can reconstruct the full provenance of every image months after the listing closes.
Bill text and legislative history: California Legislative Information — AB 723 (2025–2026 session).
SEAREI provides compliance workflow tools. This page is not legal advice. Confirm final disclosure requirements with your MLS, brokerage, and California legal counsel.
Last updated: May 6, 2026 · SEATECHONE LLC
Other jurisdictions: Washington · NWMLS · British Columbia.