I am passing along this story mainly because I absolutely could not believe it. I also thought it raised some interesting questions about sellers disclosures.
An agent friend of mine used to work in new home sales at a model home in a new neighborhood. She was working with a client whose home was in the process of being built. The client came by to get the key for the home to take a look at the home while construction was in progress, and came back to the model home to return the key and looked as if he had seen a ghost. All he said was..."do not go in that home." He did not look well.
Of course, the agent's curiosity was piqued and when traffic in the model slowed down she walked over to the home under construction. Everything seemed okay downstairs, so she took the stairs to the second floor. When she rounded the corner at the top of the stairwell, she saw blood stains on the floor leading into a bedroom. She walked into the bedroom and say a human arm. She immediately left...calling her manager and the police on the way. Even though she was rattled, there were more clients in the model, so she got back to work and waited for the police to arrive. When they did arrive, she was in the middle of speaking with a client, and asked the officer to hold on one second. The officer immediately responded brusquely that "this is about a homicide maam...you need to come with me right away." She then spent the next several hours involved in a homicide investigation. The original purchaser of the home backed out of the contract and bought a different home in the same community. The home was ultimately sold to another employee of the home builder.
Besides being totally shocking...I thought the story brought a couple of questions.
Is the builder required to disclose the homicide on the property?? My understanding is that a builder does not need to make sellers' disclosures, even regarding homicide. However, if an employee of the builder who knew about the homicide purchased and subsequently sold the house, I think he would have to report it on his sellers disclosure.
The second question is how do you deal with clients in such strange circumstances. In this case, the agent had a client who found a dead body in his home and a client she was pulled away from by a very blunt homicide detective. Only the smoothest of the talkers can get around those situations. There is no amount of role playing that can prepare you for that. I guess it is important to remember that you always need to stay calm and professional, and be ready for the unexpected.
Names have been omitted to protect the innocent.
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