Massachusetts Uses Quitclaim Deeds as Its Default

Massachusetts uses the Quitclaim Deed as its standard residential conveyance, and candidates from warranty deed states fail that section of the exam every time.

Three areas of Massachusetts-specific law account for a disproportionate share of state-portion misses, and all three are under-taught or actively mistaught by national prep courses.

The REB governs real estate licensing in Massachusetts. The PSI exam tests 40 state specific questions alongside 80 national questions, with a minimum passing score of 70%. These three topics appear repeatedly in the state portion and are the ones Massachusetts candidates most often get wrong.

Quitclaim Deeds (as Standard)

Candidates from warranty-deed states get this section wrong at a higher rate than any other topic on the Massachusetts exam, because the default here is fundamentally different from everywhere they have ever studied. Let's look at what the law actually requires.

Unlike the rest of the country, Massachusetts uses the quitclaim deed as its default residential conveyance, it only guarantees the grantor has not encumbered the property during their own ownership period, not before, a critical distinction candidates from warranty-deed states consistently get wrong.

Know which covenants attach to each deed type, what a quitclaim actually guarantees versus what it withholds, and how that changes what a buyer receives at closing in Massachusetts. I don't want you guessing on this one. Know it cold.

Title 5 (Septic) Compliance

Title 5 is Massachusetts-specific law with inspection windows, result categories, and repair timelines that appear nowhere in national prep materials. The REB tests all of them.

Title 5 compliance is Massachusetts-specific, but neighboring states have their own pre-sale inspection requirements. Rhode Island has the Cesspool Act requiring cesspool upgrades for transfers, and Connecticut has its own septic disclosure rules. Neither state has an inspection and certification requirement as detailed as Title 5.

Massachusetts requires a Title 5 septic inspection within two years before any property transfer, with pass/conditional/fail results, and failed systems must be repaired within two years, the exam tests the inspection window and the family-member transfer exemption.

The PSI exam will test the two-year inspection window, what a conditional pass requires, and the family-member transfer exemption. Each of these is a separate question risk if you skip the details.

The federal lead paint disclosure rule is the national baseline, but Massachusetts goes further with its own 90-day deleading timeline that has no equivalent in any other state.

Lead Paint 90-Day Rule

Most candidates know the federal requirement around lead paint. What they don't know is that Massachusetts imposes its own separate timeline with its own liability consequences, and those are what the REB tests. This is the kind of detail the exam loves, and most prep courses skip.

New owners of pre 1978 homes where a child under 6 will reside must delead or achieve interim control within 90 days of taking title, starting work within 90 days removes liability for previous claims, while missing the deadline exposes the owner to years of retroactive liability.

Know the 90-day trigger, what starts the clock, the difference between deleading and interim control, and exactly what the liability exposure looks like if the deadline is missed. The REB expects precision on all of these.

The retroactive liability exposure for missing the 90-day window is one of the highest-stakes details on the Massachusetts state portion, and it's the kind of rule you'll only find in Massachusetts-specific study materials. If you miss this question, it's not because the exam is unfair. It's because your prep materials were lazy.