REAL ESTATE CONTRACTS ARTICLES
Can home buyer question square footage after sale?
Question: Three months ago, we sold our 4-bedroom Arcadia home. On the listing paperwork, we showed that the square footage of our home was 4,417 sq. ft., which was the square footage on the paperwork 24 years ago when we bought our home. After our last child moved out two years ago for college, however, we tore down her bedroom to increase the patio area outside as my husband is a BBQ guy. We never thought to change the square footage on the listing agreement for that loss of square footage. Last week we received a letter from the buyer’s lawyer…
Arizona home seller repair obligations after inspection period
Question: We signed the standard Arizona Association of Realtors purchase contract to sell our Queen Creek home. The buyer had a 10-day inspection period to request any repairs. On day 14 our listing broker received the buyer’s request to fix the swimming pool motor. Our listing broker says that we must fix the swimming pool motor. Is our listing broker correct? Answer: Probably not. The amended AAR purchase contract (2022) no longer requires the seller to warrant to the buyer that electrical systems, e.g., swimming pool motor, will be in working condition at close of escrow. Thus, the buyer was…
Do You Still Owe Your Broker If You Find the Buyer?
Question: Last month, we signed a six-month listing agreement with a real estate broker to sell our Fountain Hills home. When our son found out that we were selling our home, he immediately said he would buy it. He now has the financing for the purchase, and he doesn’t want to do an inspection because he trusts us. When we told our real estate broker the good news that now we didn’t need him to sell the home, he said we still owed him the 5% commission in the listing agreement. How can we owe this 5% commission when our real…
Who can answer questions about property disclosure form?
Question: We recently listed our Mesa home for $1.2 million with a prominent Mesa brokerage firm. Within three days, we accepted an offer for $1.1 million. When we signed the purchase contract presented by our listing broker at our home, we also got a seven-page Seller Property Disclosure Statement to be completed by us. This document is very confusing. When we started to ask questions about the form, our listing broker said that his brokerage firm’s policy was that he could only respond to questions about the form itself, and not discuss the answers to particular questions because only we knew…
Can homebuyer take back verbal OK to cancel contract?
Question: Last month, I listed my Sun City home for sale to move to Utah to live with my son’s family. An investor buyer immediately offered to buy my home for my list price of $420,000, so I accepted. Since that time, I have had nothing but arguments with my son’s wife, and I no longer want to move to Utah. My listing agent and I then had a meeting at Starbucks with the investor buyer and his agent. I offered the investor buyer $25,000 to cancel the contract, and he accepted my $25,000 offer. I was so happy I started…
Must a property seller accept a full-price offer?
Question: We have a nice home on a five-acre lot outside Prescott. The five-acre lot next to us has always been vacant and is owned by a California investor. Yesterday a real estate agent put a ‘For Sale’ sign on this vacant lot for $175,000. We were so excited because we could now build a home next door for our daughter and her three children. We contacted our friend who is a real estate agent, and at 6 p.m. she presented our full price $175,000 offer to the seller’s listing agent. We heard nothing that night. The next morning our real…
Can an AZ Landowner Build A Road to Landlock a Property?
Question: In 2017 my wife and I bought a lot in the Rio Verde area from a developer. We thought that there was access to our lot from a dirt road over two adjacent lots to the main highway. We are now ready to build a home on our lot, but our contractor states that our paperwork shows that we only have the right of access over one of the adjacent lots. The owner of the other adjacent lot lives in Wisconsin and refuses to even talk to our contractor. Will we be able to build our home? Answer: Probably:…
Does An Arizona Will Need To Be Notarized?
Question: My husband and I are signing a will and revocable living trust with internet forms from a Certified Public Accountant (CPA). Our major asset is our Chandler home. These forms do not require the notarization of our signatures or the signatures of our two witnesses. Is our will valid without the notarization of these two signatures? Answer: Probably. If there is no notarization of the signatures of the two witnesses, however, upon the deaths of you and your husband, the two witnesses will have to testify in probate court. Otherwise, the will is self-proving. ARS §14-2504. In other words,…
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