Q: Regarding your MarketWise column on September 20, 2020, in The Mercury News (https://www.mercurynews.com/) “Estate trustee can access funds to do significant repairs, but siblings OK with ‘as-is’ price; how should family move forward?”:
My siblings are selling our parent’s home in Los Angeles County. I live in the Bay Area, and due to COVID-19 concerns, I cannot travel. I’ve been providing advice for months, which I learned from top brokers on the San Francisco Peninsula. For instance, presale inspections are a must in my area, and my siblings and the seller’s broker they hired rejected the idea. After a week of explaining the value of full seller disclosure, my siblings agreed to presale seller inspections with the caveat I pay for the reports and find the appropriate professionals to complete the inspections. A week later, I had to educate the seller’s agent about online seller disclosure websites. He balked at the idea until I had a Silicon Valley seller’s agent email him a website link to an online seller disclosure package consisting of a full set of presale inspections and disclosures.
A week ago, the seller’s agent emailed all the siblings, indicating he would follow the example sent to him by my Northern California agent. On Thursday, September 24, I learned there are no online disclosures in play and that the house has been on the market and getting lots of showings. On Friday, September 25, I understand that the seller’s agent delegated the online seller disclosure package’s creation and cost to his out-of-town realty office manager, asserting that by Tuesday, September 29, the presale disclosure package might be online. By then, the property will have been on the market for 15 days. How can I address the in-process mishandling of my parent’s listing?
A: That seller’s agent can create an account on these disclosure sharing websites in less than two minutes — another minute to pay the $25 per month or $45 depending on which website. Then, halfway through the fourth minute, the seller’s agent uploads the main photo of your parent’s house and its disclosures and reports. Time and difficulty cannot be why this agent shirked his responsibility — it’s frugality. Insist that you two screen-share an online meeting immediately, create a disclosure website account and you pay the $25 a month until the house closes escrow. All interested parties will then receive and share the online disclosure package, which increases the number of offers, higher prices, seller-friendly terms, and fewer post-sale legal claims. Otherwise, none of that will occur if you let the purposeful waywardness by this seller’s agent ruin a once-in-a-lifetime transaction.
Questions? Realtor Pat Kapowich is a career-long consumer protection advocate and Certified Real Estate Brokerage Manager. 408-245-7700 Pat@SiliconValleyBroker.com DRE# 00979413 Learn tips, trends and best practices by subscribing to YouTube.com/PatKapowich
