How Can I Sign Ohio Banking Form

How can i industry sign banking ohio form later

hi my name is peg written hour and vice president of legal services here at the Ohio Association of Realtors today I'd like to talk to you about the residential property disclosure form this is a form that is a residential realtor you probably use on a daily basis but I thought it might be a good time just to review when the forms required what transactions are exempt from use of the form what to do if your seller won't fill out the form and what the rescission rights are under this Ohio law so let's talk first about when you need the form basically under Ohio law you need the residential property disclosure form if it is the sale of property that's been improved with 124 dwelling units so if it's a single-family home a double or a twin single as it's called in some parts of Ohio or it's an apartment building with up to four units you need to have the residential property disclosure form filled out by the seller upon the sale of that property so based on that definition then it's pretty obvious I think that you don't need the form on vacant land because it doesn't have any residential units you don't need it on property that's purely commercial such as retail property or commercial space that has no dwelling units and you don't need it on apartment buildings that are five or more units so on all other transactions you need the form if it's one to four units unless it's specifically exempted under this law so what are some of the transactions in which even though it's one to four family you don't need to use the form because it falls under an exemption well some of the most common exemptions include the sale of property that's been in an estate that's being handled by the executor property that's being sold by a guardian or by a trustee a court-ordered sale is also exempt another exemption would be new construction as long as no one has ever lived there the sale of property between co-owners or the sale between spouses including ex-spouses or exempt as our sales between children and parents and grandparents those are all transactions that are exempt a few other exemptions are a sale of property by someone who's inherited the property so let's say your parent died you inherited the property you put it on the market you're not required to fill out a residential property disclosure form as long as you have not lived in the property for the last year another exemption is for transactions in which the person who's buying the property has lived in the property for the last year and the most common situation where this is involved is where you have a property that's been rented and now the tenant wants to purchase the property if someone has lived in the property during the last year you do not need to give them a form as a seller so a landlord who's selling the property of a to a tenant who's lived there for the last year does not need to give them a residential property disclosure form there are a couple other transactions in which there's some confusion the first one is investors and many of our members and many sellers believe that as long as they haven't lived in the property that they don't have to give a residential property disclosure form and that's just not true there is no exemption whatsoever for investors or people who haven't lived in the property so if you have somebody who's purchased this property they've used it only as a rental and now a few years later or a few months later they've decided they want to put it on the market and sell it they have to provide a residential property disclosure form to the purchaser of that property the other main area of confusion is with respect to lender owned properties usually referred to as REO properties so a bank who has now taken back title to this property do they have to give a residential property disclosure form well the answer to that really depends on how the bank acquired title to the property if the bank took back the property by taking back a deed instead of going through the foreclosure process referred to as a deed in lieu of foreclosure then that does fall under an exemption so that lender who took back a deed in lieu of foreclosure does not need to provide a residential property disclosure form when they put the property back on the market and they sell it to someone else the same is not true however for banks that acquire title to the property through the foreclosure process and purchase the property at the sheriff sale if a bank does that they go to the sheriff sale they're the highest bidder and they acquire title to the property they are technically required to fill out a form and provide it to a buyer upon resale of the property now I know probably most of you are thinking boy that happens all the time and the bank just won't fill out the form well what do you do in those situations when you have a seller whether it's a lender or someone else who is required to fill out the form and they just say I'm not going to do it what's going to be the consequence well really if you look at the seller disclosure law there's just one consequence and that consequence is that the buyer will have certain rights to rescind that contract under Ohio law the buyers to be given the form before they enter into a contract to purchase real estate before they're bound by that purchase contract if they don't get that form they have the right to rescind the contract by delivering written signed notice to the seller so what's the time limit for doing that basically if they never receive a form they have 30 days from the date of acceptance more closing whichever occurs first to resend that contract so let's say for example the contract was entered into on october first the seller does not give the buyer or residential property disclosure form the buyer realizes they should have received a form and they now no longer want to purchase the property they would have 30 days from the date of acceptance or October thirty-first more closing whichever occurs first to rescind that contract now what about the situation where maybe the seller gives them a form but they give it to them after the buyer is bound by a purchase contract is the buyers still have a right to rescind in that situation the answer is yes they still have the right to rescind because they got the form after they were bound by a purchase contract now in that situation they have to deliver notice of the rescission within three business days of receiving that late form and again that's going to be kept by the 30 days from the date of acceptance or closing whichever occurs first the thing to understand is that nobody can rescind the contract once the transaction is closed merely because they didn't receive the residential property disclosure form so what should you do as a real estate agent if you have a situation where a seller says I'm not going to give the form to a buyer I believe I'm exempt I'm not going to give them a form in that situation you want to be able to document for your file that you notified your seller of Ohio seller disclosure law and of the rescission rights that could exist and then at that point as long as you can document that you notified them of their right you really won't have any type of negative consequence against you because of the sellers refuse it will provide the form you just want to be able to put some notes in your file may be in the form of an email to the seller or at least some notes that you wrote that you gave the form to the seller you ask them to fill it out and they indicated they would not we have a couple tools to help you on OA RS website with this issue first of all we've developed kind of a chart for you that identifies those transactions in which you need the form and those transactions in which you are not required to provide the residential property disclosure form to a buyer the second document we created was a waiver form an exemption form so that if you have a situation where a seller is exempt from providing the form they can sign this form and check off which exemption they qualify for and you can put that in your file and if ever questioned you can show that the seller indicated they were exempt and this was the reason why the seller said they were exempt that form is purely voluntary it's nothing that's required by Ohio law or by the division of real estate so you don't have to use it we merely created that document because some of our members requested it and I think many of them have found it to be helpful those two tools the chart that lists those transactions on which the form is required and when it's not and the exemption form or both found in the legal section of our website which is Ohio realtor.org so just look under legal topics and you'll find that information there as well as a white paper on disclosure issues and there's Q&A in there about the Ohio residential property disclosure form I hope you found this to be helpful to you as a real estate agent and again if you have any other questions certainly feel free to visit our website we hope you find the information there you need thanks