SEEKING A NEW HOME? – PAY ATTENTION TO THE CUES
A home is a big investment of time and money. The saying goes that it is also your castle. You must ask questions if you want to maximize your chances of successfully finding your castle, and minimize the chance that you find a mud hut or money pit. Just as important is the idea that you should pay attention to what people are telling you about the seller's and the home. People will casually give you a lot of information if you will simply listen and make note of what you are told.
Let me give you an example. A Realtor® , a neighbor, or a selling home owner themselves, casually mention one of the following: there is marital discord; there are financial issues; someone lost a job; or someone has been seriously ill. I would bet that the average potential buyer thinks that this may be a cue that there is an opportunity to buy the home at a lower price, if they even note the casual comment at all. As an attorney, it sends me a totally different cue. I once had a client mention as a throw away piece of gossip that the selling couple might be getting divorced. Knowing that a divorce can have an impact on the transfer of a property, I searched the court records looking to see if a divorce had been filed. I did not find a divorce filing, but I did find a long pending foreclosure lawsuit affecting the seller's home, something the buyer and their Realtor® did not know about. Just one example of how important a seemingly small piece of information can be.
Example #2: A buyer is told that the 30 year old house has a 3 year old gas burner heating the house (one of the selling points of the listing). The cue given to the typical buyer is that this is an old home that has new improvements and this is one important item on their inspection checklist that they probably won't have to worry about. That's not my cue. To me that piece of information begs the question, “how was the home heated for the first 27 years before the new gas burner was installed?” As an attorney I am hoping to gain information that will lead me to the conclusion that there is no abandoned oil tank with the potential to pose environmental liability issues.
I'll give you one more example. You are looking at buying a home that someone has lived in for thirty years. The house is fairly well kept but has thirty years worth of stuff in it. You as the buyer have a need to move in 4-6 weeks weeks for one reason or another. The seller wants two months but agrees to move in five weeks based on the price. Perhaps there is no cue for you in this situation. You just think that you are getting the deal you want/need. If I know that the people have 30 years worth of stuff and that they were originally seeking two months to move, then that cues me in that the buyer's drop dead move in date may not happen. I have seen it occur more than once where the seller could not move as easily as the buyer expected. Sometimes there's a limit to what a Buyer can do about it other than to have the right expectations. It's common that the more a buyer tells me about the home, it's occupants, the listing, the casual conversations, and the negotiation/discussion that lead up the actual agreement, the more I can help the Buyer.
Just like when a date, a friend, an employer, or a salesperson tells you something that seems silly or unimportant, don't be too quick to dismiss the information. People are always giving you relevant and important information, whether you and the communicator realize it or not. The moral of the story is to pay attention to everything that is said or written about the property and the homeowner, and make sure you give all of the information that you know to your attorney, no matter how trivial something seems. You never know if divulging what seems like a small detail will help you ultimately avoid a pitfall or at least have the most reasonable expectations.
By Albert Unger, Esquire. © 2009 All rights reserved. This article should not be reproduced without the permission of the author.
Attorney Unger is a licensed attorney in the State of Connecticut and practices real estate law among other areas. The examples in this article are culled from real experiences that have occurred during the course of real estate transactions that have been handled by Attorney Unger. For more information contact him at albert@attorneyunger.com.
A home is a big investment of time and money. The saying goes that it is also your castle. You must ask questions if you want to maximize your chances of successfully finding your castle, and minimize the chance that you find a mud hut or money pit. Just as important is the idea that you should pay attention to what people are telling you about the seller's and the home. People will casually give you a lot of information if you will simply listen and make note of what you are told.
Let me give you an example. A Realtor® , a neighbor, or a selling home owner themselves, casually mention one of the following: there is marital discord; there are financial issues; someone lost a job; or someone has been seriously ill. I would bet that the average potential buyer thinks that this may be a cue that there is an opportunity to buy the home at a lower price, if they even note the casual comment at all. As an attorney, it sends me a totally different cue. I once had a client mention as a throw away piece of gossip that the selling couple might be getting divorced. Knowing that a divorce can have an impact on the transfer of a property, I searched the court records looking to see if a divorce had been filed. I did not find a divorce filing, but I did find a long pending foreclosure lawsuit affecting the seller's home, something the buyer and their Realtor® did not know about. Just one example of how important a seemingly small piece of information can be.
Example #2: A buyer is told that the 30 year old house has a 3 year old gas burner heating the house (one of the selling points of the listing). The cue given to the typical buyer is that this is an old home that has new improvements and this is one important item on their inspection checklist that they probably won't have to worry about. That's not my cue. To me that piece of information begs the question, “how was the home heated for the first 27 years before the new gas burner was installed?” As an attorney I am hoping to gain information that will lead me to the conclusion that there is no abandoned oil tank with the potential to pose environmental liability issues.
I'll give you one more example. You are looking at buying a home that someone has lived in for thirty years. The house is fairly well kept but has thirty years worth of stuff in it. You as the buyer have a need to move in 4-6 weeks weeks for one reason or another. The seller wants two months but agrees to move in five weeks based on the price. Perhaps there is no cue for you in this situation. You just think that you are getting the deal you want/need. If I know that the people have 30 years worth of stuff and that they were originally seeking two months to move, then that cues me in that the buyer's drop dead move in date may not happen. I have seen it occur more than once where the seller could not move as easily as the buyer expected. Sometimes there's a limit to what a Buyer can do about it other than to have the right expectations. It's common that the more a buyer tells me about the home, it's occupants, the listing, the casual conversations, and the negotiation/discussion that lead up the actual agreement, the more I can help the Buyer.
Just like when a date, a friend, an employer, or a salesperson tells you something that seems silly or unimportant, don't be too quick to dismiss the information. People are always giving you relevant and important information, whether you and the communicator realize it or not. The moral of the story is to pay attention to everything that is said or written about the property and the homeowner, and make sure you give all of the information that you know to your attorney, no matter how trivial something seems. You never know if divulging what seems like a small detail will help you ultimately avoid a pitfall or at least have the most reasonable expectations.
By Albert Unger, Esquire. © 2009 All rights reserved. This article should not be reproduced without the permission of the author.
Attorney Unger is a licensed attorney in the State of Connecticut and practices real estate law among other areas. The examples in this article are culled from real experiences that have occurred during the course of real estate transactions that have been handled by Attorney Unger. For more information contact him at albert@attorneyunger.com.
