maintaining licensure while living abroad

[Anonymous]

Hello all,

Has anyone had experience with living abroad and keeping your status as a landscape architect in the US? I recently became licensed in Texas, but they do not seem to have a good option for maintaining the license while I am not living in Texas. I would still need to maintain CE and pay a hefty fee each year.

While I am not opposed to maintaining CE, I wonder if it is possible to do it all abroad. (for instance, will I find ADA credit hours in Germany? Likely not) Is there a state that I could get reciprocal licensure that maybe has lower fees, a living abroad option, or simpler CE requirements?

Basically, I want to maintain licensure in the simplest and cheapest way possible while I am not using it so I don’t have to take the test again on my return. Any input from personal experiences would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

I suggest getting licensed in a state that does not have CE credit requirements before you become inactive in Texas. Keep that renewed while you are away. Then re-apply for your Texas license by reciprocity when you come back to Texas.

[Anonymous]

Do you have any idea what is a good state to do that?

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

I’m in Massachusetts and we have no CEU’s and it is only $66 per year for licensing. Check with your licensing board to see if it is easy to get re-instated after having continued licensing in other states. I’d leave out the fact that you’ll be abroad. They will likely think you’ll be practicing in that other state, although it should not matter in my opinion.

Massachusetts is a Title Act state rather than a Practice Act state (hard to believe with Harvard here and Olmsted’s history here). You might want to stick to a Practice Act state to avoid the possibility of any issue.

[ERB]

Here’s a link that might help on that front (although it’s almost two years out of date): http://www.asla.org/uploadedFiles/CMS/Government_Affairs/State_Goverment_Affairs_and_Licensure/Licensure_Advocacy_Resources/CEChart(2).pdf

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