If you do not believe me ask around. Although most of you that responded to my reply are not located in California anyways so I dont see how you would know if you didn't, unless you can tell me that you are licensed here. Asking me to elaborate as if I didnt already: a main reason for lawsuits in California ~ FAILURE TO DISCLOSE. Many owners (especially in California) do not have a clue what it is that has to be disclosed without guidance from a Realtor. I dont know about other states and I dont claim to (unlike many of you) but here in CA anyone that buys a home and finds something that affects the properties value and that could have been disclosed to them at the time of the sale has 7 years from the date of DISCOVERY to take action against not only the people that sold them the home but the broker as well. NO I AM NOT JOKING. Now granted the original topic had to do with a FSBO wanting to use the MLS because he couldnt afford to use a Realtor and I was merely pointing out what no one else did. We are not only there to help people market their home and get top dollar for it by being able to use the MLS, but we are also there to protect our clients. I like many of you was trying to stress the importance of using a Realtor.

dang. we have disclaimers here. they have an option to disclose or disclaim, 99.9% of ppl disclaim.

Here if they didnt know they had to disclose it its still the agents job to let them know that they must disclose it. If the sellers themselves or the agent never knew about the situation that is a whole other ball game. But most people know what is going on with their house. They know that there are problems with their pool filter or that their heater hasnt been working. We as agents here in California should NEVER state on a Transfer Disclosure Statement that there was nothing to disclose. There is ALWAYS something to disclose unless the home in brand new. In which case that too is a whole other ball game. We have to do a complete walk through of the home and take notes on anything and everything we see even if it is a minor detail, and disclose it down to the damn cracks on the pavement. I am in no way joking with you. This is especially how the company I work for does things. Not everyone here does things that way and when they end up in a lawsuit and have the TDS out in front of them and the box is checked that says that the agent found nothing to disclose, the judge is gonna know that they were being lazy and that they didnt take the time to make sure they found something to disclose. That way the buyers can never say that you didnt do any work to check and see if what it is they are concerned about was something you and the sellers for that matter should have been concerned about enough to disclose. We also stress the importance of our buyers paying to have a home inspection done. All of this is included in the contract so that they can never come back and say "the agents didnt inform me that I should care enough to have an inspection done." Forget it. They are done. They signed a contract saying that we told them to have that home inspection performed. Case closed. Both you, your broker and especially your sellers can go home happy.

Misty,
In reality FSBO's are not the #1 reason for lawsuits, Lawyers are!

You are correct the everyone on this board does not know specific CA law regarding disclosures but disclosures were not the topic of the thread you referring.

Many states have very similiar disclosure laws so do no jump to the conclusion that just because someone is not from CA they have zero knowledge and many of us know agents & brokers from CA and a few may have been previously licensed in CA.

Would love to see your statistics to back up what you are claiming about the FSBO lawsuits. If it is just your opinion then ok but you should say that it is just that an opinion.

Paul,
No it is not just my opinion. And btw I referenced that disclosures were not the topic of the thread and what the actual topic of the thread was and what kind of a point i was trying to make in my post that everyone else was missing. I never jumped to any conculsions and claimed that because someone is not from California they have zero knowledge. I in no way claimed that.I am simply claiming that I am not a joker and I do not want to be taken for one. And as you can plainly see from the above 2 posts, we have a different way of going about things in CA vs VA. Like I said before feel free to challenge me and find out information. If you would like the name of someone who can give you the statistics I will gladly give you his name. He is a wonderful broker here in California and he spends alot of his time working with FSBO's.

thanks misty, i learned something new. do buyers do a home inspection there?

I was looking for more than just a specific broker that works with FSBO's.

Just out of curiousity but what do you mean works with FSBO's? If they sign with him then they are not FSBO's they are his clients. When I was asking about stats I was thinking more along the lines of NAR or the CAR having statistics collected from the entire area and not a single brokers experience.

Does CA have a specific disclosure form that the owner must fill out? Is it a series of checklists> Does the owner just fill it out and say "there are currently 5 medium sized cracks in my front walkway and 3 that were previously repaired(from your example above about sidewalk cracks).

The majority of non disclosure lawsuits nationwide are from things that were concealed or hidden defects that the owners were most likely aware. An agents walk through is not going to uncover any hidden defects due to the fact that most agents have no construction or engineering background which is where home inspectors come in. I have never acted as a buyers agent without stressing the importance of a home inspection. I also try to get sellers to have a pre-sale inspection done to use as a selling tool and to eliminate problems during closing.