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Welcome to Friday “six”! If you couldn’t tell by the weather outside, happy first day of Fall! This week’s Fridays with Laura at a glance > Going a little tech on you today as we sweep! Standards of Practice is back in session post summer. Survey says? (you tell us!) FORE! for a good cause and plenty of laughs!
Let’s start on the tech front. I would be remiss not to mention the rebranding of TouchCMA!
What was once TouchCMA has been rebranded and released as Moxi Present – your all-in-one real estate marketing presentation tool. It goes well beyond a “CMA” tool only. Thus the rebrand. So far so good, I’m hearing good feedback!
On the homepage of WORC you’ll notice this “news” message – log into WORC and get the full download – all right there for you…
In the immediate, a few Moxi Present digestible bites…
Revisualized to be more compact and to the point. Simplified to make getting around easier. A complete overhaul of how presentation pages are viewed, added, and created. Live, inline editing of custom page with our new “visual editor”. Mobile-friendly layout and page composition elements that make it simple to create custom page content that looks great on any device.
Standards of Practice is back in session!
Keeping in step with our commitment to the highest standard of service to our clients and to respectful relationships with all brokers I thought a good time of year to let you know our incredible Standards of Practice group is back in session after the summer and meeting up again monthly. Led by Mark Hobbs and all WRE offices in-city represented – this is an absolutely incredible group of people. Content should be again monthly coming back to your office meetings for continued engagement. One item from this week’s engagement that is worth noting is the current market confusion in the practice of crossing out the 10 days on the information verification time (paragraph “w” in our boiler plate) – spoiler alert – it actual HURTS THE SELLER.
(Thank you Eastlake manager, Michael Nelson, for these talking points – they get right to the heart of the matter) …
It opens the SELLER up to lawsuits long after closing.
It does not protect the SELLER.
It does not keep the deal together. What it does is OPEN UP THE SELLER TO LAWSUITS LONG AFTER THE DEAL CLOSES.
The BUYER ALREADY has the right to sue the SELLER for misrepresentations (aka, lies).
What that paragraph does is LIMIT the BUYER’S right to sue to only 10 days.
If you cross it out you are giving the BUYER the right to sue for years and years after closing.
SO = That’s good for the BUYER, they have the right to sue for longer.
BUT if you are a listing agent and you allow this to be crossed out you are opening your client, your SELLER, up to lawsuits long after closing. You are NOT representing your SELLER’S best interests. You are in fact doing exactly the opposite.
The question then becomes, is it ok to reduce the 10 days to a shorter time frame?
Answer is (from Lars Neste, Demco) : I agree in general that having paragraph w provides the seller with a good defense against a misrepresentation claim. By the way, the same is true with an inspection contingency. I would not go so far as to say that striking paragraph w necessarily exposes the seller to lawsuits though. If I were defending a seller I would like to have paragraph w in play. However, paragraph x still provides a great defense against seller misrepresentation claims, more defense than paragraph w actually. I think the best approach is to either limit the time period to zero days or just a few days. Zero days suggests the buyer still had the right but has completed their due diligence prior to mutual acceptance so they do not need more time. Might be a subtle difference from striking the whole paragraph but it does allow the seller to claim the contingency was in place but the buyer elected to essentially waive it by restricting the time period to zero days.
PS, Lars Neste agrees with Annie Fitzsimmons – no real battle of the barristers on this one. Annie speaks to this confusion within these next 4 minutes – click here
Survey says! Well heck, you tell us…
Late last week brokers throughout the entire Windermere network were asked to complete an anonymous “Agent Satisfaction Survey”…I’m the first to tell you I’m not a fan of surveys. However this go around I will tell you that I do feel as if we have the right people in place to listen, digest and commit to our relentless pursuit of having the best-trained and best-equipped brokers in the industry. I know these are the reasons I chose Windermere to be my partner in all things real estate since 2000. Your voice means a ton to OB, Jill & I and will help all of Windermere improve. If you are willing and have not yet taken this broker survey, click here for the link. Survey closes Thursday, Sept. 28th at 5pm.
Next week I should have a new legal bulletin to share with respect to drone photography and the law. Stay tuned as we are polishing up a new bulletin in partnership with Demco. Interesting & relevant, needless to say…
Signing off today as I must go find my golf clubs in the garage, dust them off and take a few swings as you’ll find me on the golf course this Monday with many of you at our now annual tournament benefitting Mary’s Place. For those of you golfing Monday, bring your game face + smiles! FORE!
Laura Smith, General Manager | Windermere Real Estate Co.
Ballard + Eastlake + Madison Park + Northgate + Sand Point + Wedgwood
