By: Betsy McKernan REALTOR®
Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce Member
With the explosive growth in the Montgomery area comes new residents looking to buy homes. If you are thinking about selling your home, you should know that there are many documents that are required or should be given to a home buyer. Preparing and providing the proper documents is a way to reduce a home seller’s risk. The Seller’s Disclosure Notice is one such document. In Texas, providing a Seller’s Disclosure Notice (Notice) to a buyer is a legal requirement found in the Texas Property Code, Section 5.008. There are some exceptions to the requirement, but I won’t address those in this article. The statute outlines the minimum required disclosures. The Notice will disclose to a buyer which items are present in the home and whether any of the items are in disrepair. The condition of mechanical systems and structural components are also addressed in the Notice. The Texas Real Estate Commission and the Texas Association of Realtors (TAR) have developed a Seller’s Disclosure Notice. The TAR form goes beyond the minimum disclosures required by the statute but is generally the one that a seller will be presented with from his or her real estate agent. While the TAR form is not mandatory, it is comprehensive so it will serve a seller well to use it. INSERT IMAGE HERE Buying a home is one of the biggest purchases a person makes. When making such a decision, a buyer wants to be fully informed of any issues that might make them think twice, issues that are material, to a buying decision. The Notice lets buyers know what the seller knows about the condition of the property. A thoroughly completed Notice will go a long way to reducing a seller’s risk of being sued. Lawsuits in real estate transactions in this area generally arise when a seller misrepresents a material fact about the property or fails to disclose or conceals a material fact about the property. Sellers should view the disclosures as a risk reduction tool and follow a practice to disclose, disclose, disclose.
To that end, sellers should consider the following when completing the Seller’s Disclosure Notice:
Printed courtesy of www.montgomeryareachamber.com/ – Contact the Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce for more information.
PO Box 486, Montgomery, TX 77356 – (936) 597-5004 – info@montgomeryareachamber.com