Can a seller avoid a disclosure form because of preference for ‘As-Is’ sale?
Editor’s note: This is a response to the MarketWise column published on Sunday, November 19, 2017, with the headline “Can a request to fill out a 15-page questionnaire lead sellers ‘to jump ship’?
Q: Hi Pat: It has been 25 years since I last sold or bought a house, and I don’t like the idea of a real estate disclosure form. I prefer “As-Is” (which is how I bought this home originally). Is it possible to avoid it as a condition of sale?
A: No. Nor should you. Agents, buyers and sellers often conflate the issues. “As-Is” and seller’s disclosures are completely different concerns. “As-Is” sales, i.e., sold in its present condition, became popular during the dot-com craze. So much so, “As-Is” became a common option. Before that, in Silicon Valley, the makers of the local purchase contract felt there should be a minimum standard at which a residential property should be bought and sold — such as watertight roofs, no cracked chimneys, et cetera.
Is selling your property in its present condition easily obtainable? You bet. A siamese cat could sell your property “As-Is.” If you were able to sell your home without disclosures, and in its present condition, would you leave big “money on the table”? Absolutely.
It was about 25 years ago when I attended a Risk-Management Forum at a convention for the California Association of Realtors. Agents were asked to voice their opinions at microphone stands in favor or opposed to the creation of an additional statewide seller questionnaire. The line of agents against the formation of this supplement seller questionnaire was a constant rotation of 15 to 20 licensees long. One of the first to speak to the panel proclaimed, “If we tell the buyers everything we know about the property, they won’t buy it.” His comment was then, as it is now, nonsensical flackery. There was one agent to none at the mic in the affirmative. Thankfully, the panel was mostly real estate attorneys and realty office managers. They knew better. Full disclosure gets sellers more offers, more money and dramatically less post-closing litigation. So, over-disclose and pad your retirement account, not your real estate attorney’s.