The Seller Disclosure is usually ready to be downloaded by any broker from the MLS where it is part of the property listing. This gives the buyer's agent the chance for review prior to making an offer. If the buyer goes ahead and makes an offer, page 5 of the Seller Disclosure Statement can be included with the buyer(s) acknowledging on line 263 that they've received the offer. Also, while the broker/agent is not allowed to answer any questions posed on the Statement, both seller and buyer brokers are liable for inaccurate information if they know the information to be inaccurate. Read the rest of this entry »

Pages 2 through 4 of the Seller Disclosure deal with every kind of aspect of an improved property, i.e. the home and the land. The first category is Water, beginning on line 60 (page 1). Looking at these questions and others I wish there was a fourth column of check marks labeled "NOT APPLICABLE". Question 4 "...has the [water] source provided an adequate year-round supply of potable water?" often prompts the question "what's potable water?" Read the rest of this entry »

99 seller disclosure questions: as a real estate broker I'm not permitted to advise a seller on how to answer any of them. But I can explain Form 17 by example. For example, how to deal with the Asterisk versus the "Don't Know" - The Asterisk statement says that if you check "YES" on any question marked with an asterisk (*) you'd better explain. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the most requested posts of this site is the one dealing with the Washington Seller Disclosure (Form 17) which I posted nearly four years ago. If you think that the folks in Olympia have made more changes since then, you are correct. Read the rest of this entry »

Imagine buying a used car you had never seen before, knew nothing about the manufacturer, were ignorant about the car's features and could not take it for a test drive. Imagine that the only known facts were the car's age, number of seats and size of the trunk. That's pretty much the scenario a home buyer faces when looking at a "used" home. The home buyer's means to overcome this knowledge deficit are twofold: the Seller's Disclosure Statement and the home inspection. Read the rest of this entry »