Montana Water Rights Adjudication Trips Up Most Candidates

Fewer people sit for the Montana real estate exam than most other states. That means fewer practice resources, fewer prep courses built specifically for this market, and a higher chance of walking in without knowing the state specific material.

Montana has more open land under active water adjudication than the entire state of Ohio, and the MBORE tests those water rights rules on every state portion exam.

The MBORE regulates real estate licensing in Montana. The PSI exam covers 40 state specific questions and 80 national questions. You need 70% to pass. This article identifies the three topics most likely to cost Montana candidates points, and explains what the MBORE actually tests for each one.

Water Rights (Adjudication)

Montana has more unresolved water rights adjudication than most other western states combined, and the MBORE tests what that means for real estate transactions, including priority dates, beneficial use, and deed language, in ways no national course addresses. There are 218,000 pre-1973 water claims still being sorted out. That is not an abstraction. That is the exam.

Montana is adjudicating over 218,000 pre-1973 water claims across 85 basins, the exam tests priority dates, beneficial use doctrine, and that water rights convey with real property unless specifically excluded by deed.

The exam will test whether water rights transfer automatically with a deed, what language is required to exclude them, and how the beneficial use doctrine determines valid ownership. All of those are Montana-specific concepts.

Statutory Agency

Montana's statutory broker designation sounds familiar but operates differently from the buyer's agent and transaction broker roles taught in national courses, and the exam tests those differences directly. Here's the thing most people miss: "statutory broker" is not a synonym for transaction broker. In Montana, it is a distinct legal designation with its own specific duties and limitations.

Montana's statutory broker is not an agent of either party but must still disclose adverse material facts and exercise reasonable skill, students who equate "statutory broker" with buyer's agent or transaction broker misapply duties.

Statutory agency frameworks follow a common structure but differ in the details. Alaska uses its own disclosure forms under the Public Offering Statement rules, and Idaho permits limited dual agency with written consent. Montana's statutory agency law defines its own duties and limitations that the state exam tests.

Know which duties a statutory broker in Montana still owes, specifically adverse material fact disclosure and reasonable skill, and which duties they don't owe, because the MBORE tests scenarios where the answer depends on that boundary.

Montana's statutory broker framework is one of the state's most distinctive features, and candidates who study agency law from a national perspective will misapply it on every scenario question that involves this designation.

Land Descriptions

Montana is a rectangular survey state, and the exam tests acreage calculation from fractional section descriptions. Candidates who only practiced metes and bounds face those questions cold.

Montana uses the rectangular survey system, and the exam requires calculating acreage from fractional section descriptions, students who only studied metes and bounds cannot parse Montana legal descriptions under time pressure.

Know how to read a rectangular survey description, calculate the acreage of a fractional section, and identify what legal description corresponds to a given parcel on a section map.

Montana's land description questions require math under time pressure. Candidates who understand the rectangular system conceptually but haven't practiced the acreage calculations consistently lose time and miss points on this section.