What Do I Need To Disclose When Selling?
What do you need to disclose to potential buyers? It is prudent to disclose as much as you can to your selected real estate professional about your house. If you know it, you should disclose it.
What If There Are Current Defects
If you have current defects, you should repair them if possible. If this is not financially feasible, then disclose the problem so that the buyer is aware of it before they make their offer.
What You Don’t Know Won’t Hurt You
The courts won’t hold you accountable for failing to disclose issues you’re unaware of. At a certain point the burden falls on buyers to do their due diligence to uncover any problems.
And If You Don’t Know, Don’t Guess
Buyers can ask for a lot of information about a home, including things you’ve never even thought about. Resist the temptation to guess, otherwise the buyers can come back later and say you lied or misled them about a material issue. If you really don’t know the answer to a question the buyers are asking, just say you don’t know—and put it on them to find out the answer. And if they push you for exact figures on something like square footage, make sure you properly attribute where those numbers came from. I recommend including a clause in the purchase contract that any square foot measurement quote is an approximation, and if this is a material issue for the buyers, it’s their responsibility to investigate it further. It will be better to lose a buyer by clearly disclosing all known issues than it is to spend time and dollars in litigation.
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