When the disclosure laws, implemented in 2003, changed in 2008 to do away with the “transaction broker” disclosure, the real estate industry must have been celebrating. It was hard for real estate licensees to tell buyers and sellers that they weren’t being represented. After July 1, 2008 they didn’t have to anymore.
The presumption in Florida, after July 1, 2003, is that all real estate licensees are “transaction brokers”. A transaction broker “facilitates” a transaction but doesn’t represent either the buyer or the seller as an agent. The real estate licensee is a salesperson working with a buyer or seller customer. In order for a buyer or seller to actually be represented they must enter into a written “single agent” disclosure agreement whereby the real estate licensee agrees to take on the full legal fiduciary duties of an agent and a buyer or seller agrees to have them as their agent. Then the real estate licensee is an agent and the buyer or seller is a client.
And that is the issue.
Read the full article at Optima Properties' Blog
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