Seller's Disclosures-Who Needs Em?

Seller's disclosures are a touchy subject in real estate. In Texas, we have some very specific laws regarding sellers' disclosures. First of all, nearly every seller has to fill out a seller's disclosure form when they sell their home. Many people will ask me if they are exempt, and the short answer I always give is that if you have to ask, you probably need to fill one out.

Here are the only exemptions according to the Texas Property Code:
(1) pursuant to a court order or foreclosure sale;

(2) by a trustee in bankruptcy;

(3) to a mortgagee by a mortgagor or successor in interest, or to a beneficiary
of a deed of trust by a trustor or successor in interest;

(4) by a mortgagee or a beneficiary under a deed of trust who has acquired the
real property at a sale conducted pursuant to a power of sale under a deed
of trust or a sale pursuant to a court ordered foreclosure or has acquired
the real property by a deed in lieu of foreclosure;

(5) by a fiduciary in the course of the administration of a decedent's estate,
guardianship, conservatorship, or trust;

(6) from one co-owner to one or more other co-owners;

(7) made to a spouse or to a person or persons in the lineal line of
consanguinity of one or more of the transferors;

(8) between spouses resulting from a decree of dissolution of marriage or a
decree of legal separation or from a property settlement agreement incidental
to such a decree;

(9) to or from any governmental entity;

(10) of a new residence of not more than one dwelling unit which has not
previously been occupied for residential purposes; or

(11) of real property where the value of any dwelling does not exceed five percent
of the value of the property.

That's all. As you can see, most of these exempt banks, government entities, estates, and trusts. Everyone else must provide the seller’s disclosure form to a buyer. That includes large companies, owners who have never seen the property, and even owners selling their home themselves.

That’s just one more reason why using a realtor to sell your home is advantageous. How many people selling their home know about disclosure requirements? I would guess not very many. And not having the right paperwork can open up sellers to costly lawsuits.

Starting My Own Career

It's been a long time since I posted, but in that time a lot has happened. I took all the real estate classes, took the test and now I am licensed to sell real estate. Bren and I are going to work as a team now. We are both excited to start a career together and our goal is to become the best real estate team in the Northwest Houston area.

For us, being the best is about helping people achieve their goals. It's about finding out what our clients want and making it easier for them to get there. To do that, we will provide a level of customer service above and beyond what is expected. As a team, I think that we are better able to provide that service than most agents.

This is where we have our unique advantage. There are other agents and teams out there, but I believe as a married couple who have worked together professionally for the last seven years, we can act as a unit to help our clients.

That said, we have some exciting new developments. We just went live with our new website, www.joshandbren.com. We also just acquired a new domain, mycypressrealestate.com, where I will focus on real estate in the Cypress Texas market. It should be up within the next few weeks. Also, I will continue to post here about local real estate trends and news.