div class=’posterous_autopost’div class=”posterous_bookmarklet_entry” blockquote class=”posterous_long_quote”div class=”date”span class=”dateYear”2011/span /div h2a href=”http://www.realestatecareerpeople.com/2011/12/15/legal-questions-real-estate-agents-need-to-know/” title=”Permanent Link to Legal Questions Real Estate Agents Need to Know” rel=”bookmark”Legal Questions Real Estate Agents Need to Know/a/h2 div class=”entry” pimg class=”alignleft” src=”http://www.sxc.hu/pic/m/c/cr/creationc/952313_gavel.jpg” height=”200″ alt=”Real Estate Legal Questions” width=”300″ /Real Estate agents need to have good legal knowledge and understanding of contract law. This is perhaps the most valuable service that real estate agents provide to their clients. Agents need to know how to not only understand the issues, and potential pitfalls, but they need to educate their clients and avoid catastrophies./p pHere are a few scenarios real estate agents might encounter./p h2Verbal and Written Offers/h2 pA buyer brings verbally commits that they are going to bring in an offer, the seller verbally commits to accept it. Then, a second buyer brings in a better written offer, before the written offer actually is received. Who is under contract?/p pThe second offer./p pFor a contract to be valid the offer must be signed, and communicated. As a real estate agent you need to make sure that the message has been received. The best way to go this is with a phone call./p pReal Estate agents also need to make sure that their clients understand how the negotiation process works, and when properties are really under contract./p h2What Items are Included in the Real Estate Transaction/h2 pAre refrigerators included? How about ceiling fans, water shares, propane tanks, and water softeners./p pIt depends. Fridges are considered personal property. They can be taken or left behind. What matters is what it says in the real estate purchase contract./p h2Seller Required Repairs/h2 pWhat if repairs aren’t made by settlement as agreed in the purchase contract?/p pThen an escrow account is set up that will cover the unmade repairs. In the eventnbsp; that these repairs are not made within a month, then the agreed uponnbsp; liquidated damages will be released to the buyer. In reality, this scenario may not work. Lenders often won’t allow escrow accounts, and much of the time the short sale sellers have no equity that can go in the escrow account anyways. When possible, it’s best to just move the closing back until after the repairs are really made./p h2Contract Cancellation – What happens to earnest money./h2 pAfter the financing and appraisal deadline, if a buyer wants to cancel, what happens?/p pFor a href=”http://www.utahrealestate4sale.com”Real Estate in Utah/a, the seller can either accept the earnest money as liquidated damages, or sue the buyer./p pThe earnest money should be sufficient to cover the damages. But this isn’t necessarily sufficient, if the buyer didn’t really do all they could to get their loan, the seller could still sue the buyer for damages rather than take the earnest money./p pTh safe thing to do is have the financing deadline as close to possible to closing. If anything is going to cancel, do it before the deadline./p/div/blockquote div class=”posterous_quote_citation”via a href=”http://www.realestatecareerpeople.com/2011/12/15/legal-questions-real-estate-agents-need-to-know/”realestatecareerpeople.com/a/div pThe more a real estate agent knows. The better off their clients will. Be a general rule of thumb is to simply be on top of things and anticipate future concerns. The best way to do this is experience./p/div/div