Washington Advanced Real Estate Continuing Education Practice Exam 2025 – The All-in-One Guide to Master Your Continuing Education!

An agency by ratification occurs when a principal agrees to accept unauthorized actions taken by an agent on their behalf. This means that even though the agent did not have prior authority to take a specific action, the principal can later approve or endorse those actions after the fact, thereby creating a binding agency relationship.

This process legitimizes the actions that occurred without authorization by formally accepting them, which can be crucial in real estate transactions where timely decisions are often necessary. By ratifying the unauthorized actions, the principal provides legal acknowledgment that the agent's actions align with the principal's interests, creating obligations and rights between the parties.

Other types of actions mentioned, such as express, implied, or exclusive actions refer to different facets of agency relationship and authority but do not accurately reflect the nature of agency by ratification. Express actions indicate authority explicitly granted by the principal, implied actions are those inferred from the principal's conduct, and exclusive actions pertain to arrangements that limit competition among agents. None of these directly correlate with the retrospective acceptance of unauthorized actions as seen in agency by ratification.