A Buyer’s Understanding of the Seller’s Disclosure Statement

Step 3 in Edy’s series The Escrow Process for Buyers is receiving the Seller’s Disclosure Statement.

Form 17, Seller’s Disclosure Statement. 

We talk about the “Form 17″ all the time after we reach mutual acceptance, and I have some clients that want to see it even before they make an offer.  What is the Form 17, otherwise known as the Seller’s Disclosure Statement?  Basically it’s a 5-page questionaire the Seller fills out at the time they list the house with their agent.  It goes through and asks them if they have any knowledge of various conditions or occurances of/in their home, for example if there has ever been flooding.  They can answer if they know, (and are required by law to disclose anything pertinant they know about, as is their agent) but if they don’t know, it doesn’t mean it never happened before they bought the home.  Or if they never lived in the home but were investors or inherited it, they might not know. 

Two points, one is that you as the Buyer have 5 days after recieving the Form 17 to reject the purchase based on disclosures in the Form 17 and get your earnest money back (talking about the standard form, note these time periods can be changed in an individual case so note your time periods), and the second is that as Buyers Agents we are of the mind to recommend you don’t rely heavily on the Form 17 for your in-detail information, but make sure to do a full and complete home inspection in order to thoroughly examine the home and understand any and all conditions and defects or potential trouble spots that come along with it.  The home inspector may then recommend further inspections if there are potential spots that could cause trouble later.  These might include a sewer scope (seems like they are running about $200), a structural inspection if there is a steep slope or some question on the foundation, a roof inspection if he can’t judge the remaining life of the roof or it has issues.

We will be listing a few companies that our clients have successfully used in the past on our website, www.seattlecentric.com, so please check out our Buyer resources!