How Not to Get Sued (aka, Top Tips for Disclosing)
This comes from a great article I saw last week in the Los Altos Town Crier. Talked about a recent panel of real estate lawyers (now THAT'S a bit of a scary combination of 3 words), discussing numerous issues, chief among them, disclosures.
Here were the highlights:
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In today's economic times, when much of the market is in turmoil, litigation cases have increased because there are many buyers who want to get out of deals they have made.
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When markets are good, the RE lawyers are busy. When markets are bad, they're really busy.
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Attribute and disclaim: attribute where you get your information. If you didn't verify the information, say so, and cite the source of your information.
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Document, document, document: once in litigation, people make up stories, so make sure you document everything, even telephone conversations. Email works best for this and is easy to confirm.
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Disclose, disclose, disclose: you can't disclose enough, and there is no harm in over-disclosing.
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Agents and their sellers should disclose what they know or what they've heard — even rumors. There's no need to check them out, but they need to disclose what they've heard. How far back should old disclosures be disclosed? Their answer: forever.
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Intentional failure to disclose is fraud.
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Keep files as long as possible.
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Finally, if ever in litigation, the panelists advised hiring a good attorney because there are many incompetent attorneys with little knowledge or experience in real estate law. Beware of dumb lawyers.
Realtor, Marathon Man, "Man of a Thousand Voices".
Ed Could not agree more. Its all about Disclosing! This is a good post for almost any business.
Yeah…you’d think it would be total common sense, but I’m still amazed at how often things get overlooked by some sellers out there…”oh, you didn’t think you had to disclose that someone died in the house recently?”… seeing the results of lawsuits will always remind me that I never want to be involved in one, and that lawyers make WAY too much money.