Seller Disclosures - Trick or Treat?

Do you remember going door to door on Halloween Night collecting goodies? Moving so fast from home to home that you really didn’t know what you'd collected in your bag until spreading out the contents on the floor and taking inventory later that night? The home buying disclosure process can be similar.

Once the purchase contract is in place, the race is on to find out all that you can about the property. An important part of this process is the disclosures delivered to the Buyer. Here in California, there are many required disclosures to be provided to the Buyer. Many of the disclosures are general in nature. But, the “Seller Disclosures” transfer what the Seller actually knows about this home to the Buyer. Note that the Buyer will also hire inspectors to confirm the condition of the home and the Seller Disclosures can provide areas to focus on.

Here’s where the Trick or Treat similarity chimes in. The disclosures will cover a broad spectrum of items and in conjunction with the additional data received from the inspectors, the Buyer is left a super sized bag of important information. It may be impossible to assess the importance and magnitude of this information until later when you have time to sort through and compare all of these items to other items in the bag and to inspection reports received as well.

Third party disclosures will be added to this bag as well. For example, fire hazards or flood zone information will be provided by a Natural Hazard Disclosure company on behalf of the Seller. And, important information on such as liens or easements connected to the property will be provided by the Title Insurance company.

All of this information needs to be assessed quickly and follow up questions put to the Seller and new inspections ordered, if necessary. Time is of the essence since the Buyer will have a limited amount of days to absorb all of the information before determining whether or not you desire to move forward with this purchase.

Don’t be spooked by this process though. With a solid team like Team Plunkett representing you as the Buyer, you have experts to help you categorize, absorb, and assess the information. Use our expertise to sift through any and all tricks and treats!