Contracts and Transactions
Navigating Real Estate Sales with Multiple Offers
When you receive an offer on a property, it’s exciting, right? But, when you receive multiple offers, the situation can become complex — rapidly. How you deal with…
Avoiding Legal Trouble When Working a Real Estate Contract: ClaimPrevent® Summary #7
Once you’re at the offer or accepted contract stage, there are common pitfalls even the most experienced licensee can fall into if you’re not careful — from inspections…
Minimizing Risks in Real Estate Transactions with Transaction Management Software
Technology is advancing at a rapid rate in all industries, and real estate is no exception. Transaction Management Software is yet another area of real estate where new…
Filling Out the Purchase and Sale Agreement to Avoid Problems: ClaimPrevent® Summary 5
This summary covers the most common problems when completing a Residential Purchase and Sale Agreement from a Risk Management perspective. Use it to onboard new hires or as…
Handling Offers to Purchase Real Estate: ClaimPrevent® Summary #4
This session covers the writing, review, acceptance, and rejection of real estate offers — all from a risk management perspective. Use this ClaimPrevent® summary for onboarding new hires…
Top Tips for Real Estate Transaction Coordinators: Document Checking to Avoid a Lawsuit
Transaction Coordinators play an important role in real estate transactions. Being organized and paying great attention to detail is critical to your success. You need to stay on…
Dual Agency Question: 1031 Exchange Delayed … Who Pays the Buyer’s Rate Lock?
In dual agency, the real estate licensee acts on behalf of both the buyers and sellers, and has fiduciary duty to both parties. Dual agency can be appealing,…
Real Estate Brokers: Commingling of Funds Will Lead You Straight to Court
Many things in real estate can lead a broker straight to court and a costly lawsuit. Commingling of funds is one of those things. Commingling is when a…
What Insurance Does a Transaction Coordinator Need?
Transaction Coordinators play an important role in supporting real estate brokers and licensees to close transactions faster and more efficiently. It comes with a huge responsibility, because closing…
How a Typo Can Cause a Real Estate Lawsuit
Typos happen every day. If your team is busy writing up multiple listings, contracts and property marketing materials, they’re bound to happen. Unfortunately, even the most innocent of…
Real Estate Licensees Beware of Zillow Purchase Agreements
In many transactions, Zillow acts as seller and insists on using its own purchase agreement. Below are issues you should consider when advising your buyers whether/how to use…
How to Help Your Real Estate Clients Avoid Deed Fraud and Scams
Deed fraud is on the rise, and real estate agents must be vigilant to help clients avoid these increasingly sophisticated scams. What is Deed Fraud? It typically involves…
CRES Risk Management Webinar: Risks to Real Estate Licensees Representing Sellers When Low Inventory
There are extremely low inventory levels for housing across multiple states right now. A significant portion of the real estate market are individuals who are simultaneously selling a…
Selling Deceased Estates — 4 Reasons Agents Can Be Sued
If you’re used to working with sellers, selling deceased estates has some risks you may not be aware of. While some parts of the process are the same,…
CRES Webinar: Safer Practices for Rejecting Real Estate Offers
If you’re buried in offers (usually a good problem to have), this webinar covers some key points to know to stay out of trouble. (We talk with an…
CRES Risk Management Webinar: Escalation Clauses, Appraisal Addendums, and More
In a hot seller’s market, there are increased risks for real estate professionals. And we’ve uncovered more of them in looking specifically at Nevada. In this webinar, attorney…
CRES Risk Management Webinar: Contingencies, Multiple Offers, Deadlines, and More — Preventing Claims in a Hot Real Estate Seller’s Market
In many markets right now, there's a limited amount of inventory and a surging demand for property. In this “hot seller’s market” with fast-moving properties, real estate professionals…
Dealing with Transaction Coordinators
If you’re a busy real estate agent juggling many listings, you may feel overwhelmed by all the complex legal paperwork that comes with transactions. A Transaction Coordinator can…
Disclaimers, Waivers and COVID-Related Clauses in Real Estate Contracts — How to Minimize Your Risk as a Broker
As COVID-19 continues to impact the world, it also continues to make its mark on the real estate industry across our nation. Many “business as usual” activities, such…
How to Handle a Real Estate Buyer with a Criminal Background
You’re the listing agent, and your seller gets a cash offer $2000 over asking price. Nobody has signed anything yet, but your client is pretty happy! And then…
The Pitfalls Of “Love Letters” from Potential Buyers Or Renters
In today’s competitive California real estate market, I have seen buyers attempt to obtain an edge on their competition by writing and sending letters to the sellers. These…
5 Common Pitfalls in the Residential Purchase Agreement + Handling Dual Agency
The Residential Purchase Agreement is the most important form in a real estate transaction. But it’s also the cause of most of the litigation that occurs in real…
What to Do When Buyers Discover Post-Closing Issues
Everything looked great in the house. You closed. The buyers were happy. And then … they discovered a leaky pipe and a hole in the floor. The buyer…
Managing the Risks of Remote or Drive-Thru Real Estate Closings
Many people have been severely affected by the coronavirus through illness, job losses, and business closures. As a result, some clients, understandably, will want to cancel transactions because…
Dealing with Real Estate Clients with Dementia and Alzheimers
According to the Alzheimers Association, one in three seniors dies with Alzheimer’s or dementia. Every 65 seconds, someone in the United States develops the disease. In your real…
Lessons Learned from Real Estate Contract Errors
Copy-and-paste can be a huge time saver in your real estate contract, but if you aren’t careful, it can cause more than a headache. Recently a CRES-insured broker…
Should Brokers Complete Note and Deed of Trust?
Have you ever been asked to complete a note and deed of trust? Recently a CRES-insured broker called our CRES ClaimPrevent® Hotline, because he was asked to complete…
What You Need to Do About Post-Closing Problems
You’ve closed a transaction in which you were the selling agent for the buyer. Everything went well … until the buyer discovered leaks and drainage issues that weren’t…
Multiple Offers Gone Wrong: How the CRES Legal Hotline Prevented Multiple Claims Against One Agent
A listing received multiple offers. The seller narrowed it down to two, and the agent sent out two counteroffers – but failed to specify which counter was back…
Closing Issues & Managing the Risk
As a real estate agent, there’s nothing more exciting than closing on a real estate deal. But, sometimes things can go wrong — things which can delay closing…
Are Oral Contracts Legal in Real Estate?
Sometimes it pays to review the basics: You need a written contract when selling property. CRES ClaimPrevent Hotline was recently contacted by a client who wanted to…
Representing Buyers of Income Property with Tenant Agreements
Buying a duplex can be appealing to clients for a number of reasons. Your buyers of multi-family homes need to know what happens to tenant agreements when property…
How To Manage Client Expectations About Real Estate Auctions
A real estate auction can be a highly effective way to sell a property. It’s an accelerated and intense process which can reduce the length of time a…
Selling a Property Sight-Unseen
According to a survey commissioned by Redfin, around 35% of real estate buyers purchased a property sight-unseen last year. These buyers often purchase at the higher end of…
Real Estate Buyer’s Agent Guide to Buying a Home As Is
Not every house is a dream home. Properties offered for sale “as is” indicate the seller plans to sell the home in its current condition, without any further…
9 Potential Real Estate Lawsuits and How to Avoid Them
From a presentation by Jim Meseck, White and Steele If there’s an unhappy seller or buyer, you can bet they’re going to find a way to blame their…
Tiny House, Big Problem – Understanding the legal risks of building, buying and selling tiny homes
With the current affordable housing shortage in many areas of the United States, it’s no surprise that buyers are looking for low-cost alternatives to traditional housing options. Trendy…
How to Avoid 3 E&O Claims Against Real Estate Agents Representing Tract Home Buyers
Tract homes and communities often appeal to first-time homebuyers. Buyers like the idea of selecting a floor plan, exterior design, interior finishes, and color palette in a brand-new…
How to Ensure Offer Terms Survive the Real Estate Closing: the Doctrine of Merger
Errors and Omissions claims against real estate agents or brokers are often based on the Purchase Agreement and Sales Disclosures. Clients who feel their interests were not adequately…
Money Laundering in Real Estate: How it works, how to identify it, and how to report it
Real estate money laundering is not a new problem in the United States. According to the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF), the real estate industry…
How to Keep a Verbal Easement from Turning into a Lawsuit
Have you represented a property with a verbal easement? If so, did the buyer or seller get an Improvement Location Certificate (ILC)? If not, you could end up…
How to Withdraw Counteroffers to Prevent Real Estate Lawsuits
The good news is that you’ve gotten multiple offers on an open listing. The bad news, you accidentally sent out two counter-offers. What should you do? One of…
How to Advise Buyers of FIRPTA When Purchasing from Foreign Sellers
Many real estate agents representing buyer clients have come across properties being sold by a foreign person -- or someone who appears to be a foreigner. You may…
Understanding the Earnest Money Deposit in Real Property Sales
What Is Earnest Money And Its Purpose? Earnest money is cash deposited by a buyer to a seller into escrow (in states that use escrow), demonstrating the buyer’s…
What To Do When Your Client Is In Contract and Does Not Want To Close?
Buyer’s (or seller’s) remorse becomes a legal issue when the buyer or seller does not want to close after they are under contract to buy or sell. This…
Multiple Offers: How to Reduce Your Risk of a Real Estate Lawsuit
While multiple offers are certainly enviable for listing agents, they also increase the risk of a real estate lawsuit when certain steps, procedures, and laws are not followed.…
The Significance of the Liquidated Damages Provision in the Residential Purchase Agreement
The vast majority of real estate agents and brokers are familiar with pre-printed purchase contracts for land such as the Residential Purchase Agreement and Deposit Receipt published by…
The Pros and Cons of Binding Arbitration
Many times I have consulted with my real estate clients as to the advantages and disadvantages of binding arbitration to resolve a dispute concerning real property as opposed…
Cancellation of Escrow Considerations
Invariably I have come across disputes in real estate sales where a cancellation of contract, release of deposit and cancellation of escrow on a California Association of Realtors©…
Bye-Bye HUD-1. Hello TRID
If we have learned one thing in the last seven years, it is that there will be a constant stream of new regulations affecting all of us in…
Contract Formation and Agency in the Digital Age
Most brokers and agents know that a contract for the sale of real estate generally must be in writing to be enforceable, and signed by the party against…
Dual Broker/Associate Licensee Beware!
If being a real estate broker or salesperson acting in a dual agent capacity was not already risky enough, the California Court of Appeal just made it even…
Solar Power Systems — a Hot Topic!
Issue – Solar Power Systems are Fixtures When we think of fixtures that are included in the sale of a property, it is likely that some Brokers and…
Multiple Offers
Everyone in real estate is welcoming the return of a hot housing market. My phone has been ringing regularly with questions that certainly indicate homes are selling quickly everywhere.…
Avoiding Lender Fraud
The recent cooling of the residential real estate market in most areas of the state has created a new opportunity for those inclined to defraud their lenders. We…
