Ask Renee: What a seller needs to disclose

Welcome to this Q&A segment, Ask Renee. By way of introduction, my name is Renee Han, and I am a local realtor serving Southwest Florida. I'm with Downing Fry Realty, and each of these segments will, will present a separate question that I often get asked by prospects and customers alike and an answer for you. So for this particular segment, what I wanted to answer or speak to was disclosures, and I will often get asked What do I need to disclose as a homeowner? What— or as a buyer, what is required to be disclosed to me? And, you know, the general overarching answer is oftentimes— well, always— a seller, and many times their representing real estate agent, need to disclose anything that's materially affecting the value or the desirability of the property. Of the property. The reason I say always the seller, sometimes the realtor, is obviously you can only disclose what you know about. So there are times when a property owner may know something about a property that their real estate agent may not know. But if these are, again, anything materially affecting the value or desirability of property, and that could be things like, you know, in the area in Southwest Florida, we're just we're required to disclose information about HOAs, the fact that they are present and in a, you know, in a particular community and what those costs of the HOA at present are. It could be things like, you know, neighborhood nuisances, and this one's a little bit of a gray area, but if there's something really prominent that affects the desirability of a property, you know, you are obligated to disclose that. Property restrictions— this could be deed restrictions or other, you know, any restrictions that come with owning that property. If there's outstanding permits that affect that property or liens, it also carries over to the home itself. And one of the things that we require sellers to sign at the very start of a listing agreement and the process is a seller's disclosure, and this is where you disclose things like, you know, are all the mechanics of the home fully functioning? Are there, you know, any problems with the roof, etc.? This is— so make sure if you're interested in a property that you request to have your realtor provide a copy of the seller's disclosure so you can see what's been disclosed on there. The other thing to keep in mind with the seller's disclosure is if it has been disclosed on the seller's disclosure, disclosure, as something that's not functioning, and it's not addressed in the sales contract. So I'll give you an example. If, you know, if the refrigerator was disclosed as not working, or the ice maker within the refrigerator was not working, and that was disclosed on the seller's disclosure, if the buyer wants that addressed as part of the purchase of the property, they should write that into the contract at the very beginning. So that's something I find most people take for granted and aren't aware of because that disclosure happens at the very front and it's not something that happens through the inspection process. It's discoverable at the very onset and so if these buyers are not okay with the current condition of those disclosures and want something to be done about them either as a financial concession or the seller to fix them, those things I highly encourage you to have those written into the actual sales contract. So I hope that gives you an idea of what, what needs to be disclosed. I know one of the things that, that will occasionally come up, not very often, but it's an interesting one, is, you know, somebody's died in the house, do you have to disclose it? The answer is, in the state of Florida, no. So not a great note to end on, but that is an interesting question I get asked sometimes. So I hope you'll check back on some of the other topics that we'll discuss on here. Thanks for joining. This is Your Questions Answered by Renee. Have a good day.