I wonder if I may be making history here as the first person to ever be live-blogging a real estate legal update seminar.
Twice a year my broker, Alain Pinel Realtors, runs attendance-mandatory legal update seminars hosted by Bill Jansen of Broker Risk Management. Most of us look at these events akin to a trip to the dentist: painful, but necessary and perhaps even good for us. Fortunately the company provides a breakfast to get us all there on time — a fairly reliable ruse in the case of Realtors.
Bill does his best to liven up his talks with anecdotes, pithy lines, and the occasional joke. Some of his best lines today were on disclosure obligations:
1) Seller: “Do I have to disclose–”
Agent (interrupting): “Yes.”
The point? If there’s any doubt about whether something should be disclosed, the answer is “yes”. In legalese, everything material has to be disclosed, which is of course a subjective standard. Since the likely plaintiff in any lawsuit is a buyer, their interpretation of material could come back to bite you.
Disclose, disclose, disclose.
2) “What buyers learn before escrow, they forgive. What they learn after escrow, they sue.” Buyers hate surprises, especially expensive ones. Attorneys, on the other hand, simply luv ‘em!
——————–
Disclaimer: I am not an attorney, so don’t make any decisions or take any actions based on what I’ve written above. Consult your own attorney for advice related to your particular situation.
Tags: Alain Pinel Realtors, Disclosures, Legal, Real estate
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4 responses so far ↓
1 Sock Puppet // Jun 27, 2007 at 3:50 pm
Great post Kevin. So very true.
-Athol
2 The Feed Bag // Jun 27, 2007 at 4:28 pm
[...] Kevin Boer makes a point seem so obvious that I wondered how I never thought of this original thought myself. What Buyers Learn Before Escrow, They Forgive; What They Learn After Escrow, They Sue Required Reading. [...]
3 The Feed Bag - Refried and Served Again // Jul 1, 2007 at 7:04 am
[...] Kevin Boer makes a point seem so obvious that I wondered how I never thought of this original thought myself. What Buyers Learn Before Escrow, They Forgive; What They Learn After Escrow, They Sue [...]
4 Real Estate » What Buyers Learn Before Escrow, They Forgive; What They Learn … // Sep 21, 2007 at 2:43 am
[...] unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptWhat they learn after escrow, they sue.” Buyers hate surprises, especially expensive ones. Attorneys, on the other hand, simply luv ‘em! ——————–. Disclaimer: I am not an attorney, so don’t make any decisions or take any actions based on … [...]
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