When selling a residential property in Las Vegas, there are specific requirements for what facts must be disclosed by a seller and when they must be disclosed. Nevada Revised Statute 113.130 provides broad coverage of what these specific disclosure requirements are when selling a home.
At least 10 days before finalizing the sale of a residential property, a seller must provide to the buyer a disclosure form.
This form must contain any known defects of which the seller is aware. A “defect” is defined in NRS Section 113.100 as “a condition that materially affects the value or use of residential property in an adverse manner.”
In addition, after the discloser form is given, if any new defects are discovered by the seller or their agent – or if the condition of an already-disclosed defect worsens – those newly discovered defects must then also be disclosed to the buyer.
Once the defect has been disclosed, if the seller refuses to repair or remedy the defect, the buyer may either rescind the purchase agreement or accept the property with the defect fully disclosed.
A buyer is not legally permitted to waive these disclosure requirements, nor is a seller permitted to compel the buyer to waive the seller’s disclosure obligations either.
The required disclosure form lists specific items for the seller to indicate if there are any known problems or defects. Since such are spelled out that the seller must mark either yes or no (or N/A if a particular feature, appliance, or fixture is not present on the property), a seller cannot claim they forgot to include something by it slipping their mind.
The disclosures must be made by the seller themselves
The seller’s agent is not permitted to complete the disclosures on a seller’s behalf, although the seller’s agent is required by law to serve the completed disclosure form on the buyer.
This is to ensure that all disclosures are being made by the person with actual knowledge, rather than obligating real estate agents to rely on the representations of sellers.
Under NRS 113.130(2), there are some particular types of property sale in which the seller is not required to make such disclosures. The most common examples are foreclosure sales or sales in which a buyer’s agent (such as a trustee or power of attorney) is taking title temporarily for purposes of selling the property on behalf of an individual who is deceased, incapacitated or has relocated out of the state or country.
In the instance of a foreclosure sale, however, the trustee and beneficiary of the deed of trust are required to provide written disclosure of any defects known to themselves to the buyer prior to the close of sale.
Each page must also be initialed by both the buyer and the seller in addition to signed at the end. This requirement signifies that the disclosures were actually made, the form was completed and also delivered to the buyer, and to prevent any pages of the agreement from being subsequently changed to reflect issues which were not actually disclosed to the buyer.
To learn more, visit Las Vegas Real Estate Attorneys or call 800-233-8521 for a free phone consultation.