Caveat emptor may have been the norm in residential real estate long ago, but today a buyer-beware approach would land sellers and their agents in hot water.
Seller’s disclosure rules exist to ensure that sellers don’t ignore or hide material information about a property that buyers might want to factor into their decisions. Disclosures also help sellers steer clear of accusations down the road that they were concealing details that buyers would have wanted to know. Here are some frequent questions regarding seller’s disclosure laws.
Learn more in the May cover story of Texas REALTOR® magazine.
Sellers are always the ones that get into trouble. It is really stupid for a seller to conceal issues. Unless they are moving out of state. In that case, they can and will likely get away with it. Been there.
I can assure you that if your seller’s believe they can get away without disclosing a previous issue that was fairly major, they will only get by with not disclosing until the new owner gets moved into the property and meets the neighbors. Most of the time neighbors make it their mission to tell the new owners everything they know about the property. So go with the realtor moto, disclose, disclose, disclose.
If agents are required to also provide known defects, where and how is that accomplished? And if seller does not disclose defects known by the agent, what other recourse other than decline the listing do you suggest?