When you start looking at homes for sale, each home should have a detailed report that states the facts about the home, and you should read these over carefully for any home you are interested in. Additionally, each home listed for sale will have a full-disclosure form available for you to read, and here are several important things you should know about full-disclosure forms as you shop for a house to buy.
What is this form?
A full-disclosure form is a document every homeowner must fill out when they list their home for sale. The purpose of this document is to reveal any problems, flaws, or defects of the home that the homeowner knows about. This form asks questions about the ages of certain systems in the homes, and it asks about known problems. Legally, a homeowner must reveal truthful information on this document.
Will a full-disclosure form list every defect the house has?
The second thing to understand about a full-disclosure form is that it might not list every defect of a house. This is because it only requires the homeowner to reveal the known defects. If there happens to be a problem the owner doesn't know about, he or she would not list it on the form. Additionally, there are times when people may not be truthful when filling out this form. If a homeowner lies, he or she could get in trouble for this, yet many homeowners still fail to be completely honest about known defects.
How can you get the most out of a full-disclosure form?
To get the most out of a full-disclosure form, you should begin by reading it over carefully. Next, you should get a home inspection completed if you are considering buying the house, and you should point out any questions you have about the form to the inspector.
If you read something on the disclosure form that seems questionable, you should point it out to your home inspector. The home inspector could then spend some time researching this particular part of the home to find out if there is a problem or not. Keep in mind, too, that getting a home inspection will often reveal problems not disclosed on this form; however, even a home inspector can miss problems in some cases.
Reading over a full-disclosure form is a vital step in the home-buying process. If you have questions about these forms or any other steps involved with buying a property, contact a real estate agent today.