Agents really need to be careful when writing their own special stipulations. Nothing in a real estate contract is implied. You can't say, "Well, you know what I mean." You need all of the "if not, then what?" verbiage spelled out.
One recent example made me chuckle.
I received an offer on a condo listing of mine. They had checked the box saying that they were buying it "as is". But then they wrote a special stipulation as follows.
"Buyer shall have 10 days from binding agreement date to complete inspection."
I guess they thought that putting that in there made it contingent on an inspection and if there were issues, that special stipulation would allow them to terminate and get their earnest money back. But it doesn't say any of that. It just says that they shall have 10 days to do an inspection.
When I received the offer, I called the agent to ask her why she wrote it up this wayinstead of just checking the "Due Diligence" clause in the contract. She said that that's how she likes to write it up. She acted like she knew her stuff so I wasn't going to press the issue, especially when it pretty much made it a real "as is" offer for my seller. Her special stip says that they will do an inspection, it doesn't say anything about asking for repairs or being able to terminate the contract if they don't like what they find.
In Georgia, we have a really nice and easy Due Diligence clause in our contracts. It spells out in detail that the buyer can do any inspections they want during this period and if for whatever reason they don't want to move forward, they can terminate the contract and get their earnest money back, no questions asked. It doesn't get any easier or better for a buyer.
In this case, they did their inspection and sent us a notice that they wanted $3000 in concessions.
I told her that it was "as is" and if they wanted to terminate that they should be prepared to lose their $6000 earnest money.
The agent told me how wrong I was about the earnest money because she had clearly written the special stipulation about doing a home inspection. I asked her where in her special stipulation did it state anything about asking for concessions or getting earnest money back if they decided to terminate due to the inspection.
She came back with "It's implied. Everyone knows what it means when you ask for an inspection." She says that she does a lot of bank foreclosures and they are all "as is" with a 10 day inspection period. I asked her if those bank contracts spelled out all of the details. I told her that she might want to talk with her broker and get back with me.
She got back with me and said that her buyer is fine with everything and is moving forward with the condo "as is".
Don't go out of your way and make things more complicated than they need to be. Just use the contract the way it was meant to be used. If necessary to make a change, make sure you get professional legal advice. Fortunately for her buyer, there wasn't anything wrong with the condo. They were just trying to a better deal. But what if there was something significant? Her buyer would have been stuck.
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