Who's to Blame?
By Jim Palmer Jr.

“Who is the agent representing you?” I asked a disgruntled purchaser who was upset that they had spent inspection money on a property when they now wanted out of a transaction.  The buyer had discovered the property was not what they expected and had developed severe buyer’s remorse.  The property was more run down than they had discerned from the verbiage in the advertisement and they had also just discovered the well to be low producing and the septic nothing more than a cesspool.

The dejected buyer further explained the circumstances and insisted that the listing agent from my office compensate them for their loss.  “Who is your agent?” I asked again.  “Did your agent deliver any of the available listing data and more particularly did they deliver the required disclosure statement that details well and septic information?”  The buyer ignored my questions and continued his tirade by reading the flowery verbiage of the newspaper advertisement that had enticed him into writing an offer.  “It isn’t anything like what your broker describes!” he continued.  “It isn’t habitable at all!  In fact, it needs a bulldozer!” he exclaimed emphatically.

I continued to probe for clarity and soon realized that this buyer had never seen the property prior to writing their offer, nor had their broker.  They had prematurely paid $500 for a home inspector to verify what may have been obvious if they had just seen it with their own eyes and/or read the available disclosure statement.

Who was really responsible for his monetary loss?  Himself of course, but why didn’t he realize that HIS agent could have given him better advice?  He was seeking a remedy from the wrong source. The broker who represented the seller’s interests had not attempted to hide defects or misrepresent facts, but had chosen to highlight only positive traits of the property.

I carefully stated the obvious, “There are many risks for buyers in the buying process”, and then continued to offer the following introspection; “Why didn’t you spend the time to check it out for yourself before you wrote the offer?  Don’t you think your agent had a responsibility to view the property along with yourself prior to spending your money on a home inspection?  Why didn’t your broker deliver the available seller disclosure statement that clearly revealed these deficiencies? “  
   
Of course the buyer had the right to terminate this transaction and could easily do so at that point in the transaction, but they still suffered a monetary loss because of their poor choices.