Seller Disclosure Responsibility NOT What Buyers Often Think.

This is a difficult subject. Rather than get into the ethical arguments, of which there are many, I want to get the principal across that is most important:

Although sellers are required to provide a property disclosure statement, it does not absolve buyers from the responsibility they have to themselves e.g., if you are injured in an auto accident, and were not wearing your seatbelt, is it the manufacturer’s fault that you were not wearing your seatbelt, or yours?

A case in point is the Seattle Times Q & A section from Saturday, July 21, wherein a buyer believes they were wronged because a seller didn’t disclose that their view could be parially blocked in the future by new construction. HELLOOOOO!! Any time a view is involved , it is incumbent on every buyer, and their agent, to research every conceivable way that the view could be lost or compromised. Blaming the seller for their own carelessness is not what disclosure is about.

 We have been consulted many times by homebuyers that felt that they were wronged by a seller when they learn something, ANYTHING, about their property that was not on the seller’s property disclosure form. It doesn’t work that way. The form is a helpful guide, not a “get out of jail free card”. If you make a bad buy, it is not the seller’s fault, it is your fault. A Seller is only at fault when the written disclosure is pointedly untrue.

The Northwest Multiple Listing Service Form 17 Property Disclosure Form is an important guide for home buyers. Just as important as a sellers’ responses to the many questions is the fact that most of any property’s important systems are listed for a buyer to contemplate.

The Form 17 has been revised to include more information and will be mandatory after July 22, 2007 for all residential properties, AND LAND sales. The requirement for vacant land sales is new, as are the many new questions for home sellers. If your property is currently for sale you will need to fill out this new form for any sale that occurs after July 22, even of you have already filled out the old form.