:help I’m a Newbie Investor. When I’m ready to sign a contract with a Seller/Buyer, should I Use Broker/State Contracts? Or should I use My own LEGAL custom made contracts, that are designed to Protect me to the max? :help
I think you answered your own question
The contracts used by the real estate brokers in my area are absolutely excellent. It would be my preferred contract, except that it is copyrighted and can only be used if you are buying through an agent.
The contracts I’ve seen used by mortgage brokers are a joke. They offer no protection to either buyer or seller. One of my tenants used a mortgage broker’s contract to buy a house from me, and it went OK. I insisted on adding some clauses of my own, but the buyers just accepted the contract as it was and I figured it wasn’t my job to provide them with legal advice.
I hope they signed it only because they felt they could trust me to not hurt them, and that they don’t normally sign contracts like that. I never would have signed a contract like that with anybody else but one of my own tenants. I would have let them back out for any reason, even if they weren’t protected by the contract (which they weren’t), but only because they were good long term tenants.
If the deal had gone through or not, I didn’t care very much. But if it were a sale where I intended to hold the buyer to the contract, that contract would have been worthless.
Tatertot
Legal phrases cannot be copy written. A page layout can be. And anyone, irrespective of Realtor status, can use the forms… Most boards will not sell them to you unless you’re an Agent however you can buy them online.
As for whether I would use them, I do only when I sell a property, never when I buy one… They do not offer enough protection when purchasing IMHO. Most are written to protect the Brokers. And don’t cover the creative side of real estate. I haven’t seen a Subject to disclosure in a Realtor form yet.
Michael