November 2016 Archives

This morning, November 21, 2016, in a unanimous decision, the California Supreme Court re-affirmed that when the real estate agent for the seller and the separate real estate agent for the buyer, both work for the same real estate brokerage company, then they both are fiduciaries for both the seller and the buyer. That means both agents must tell the buyer anything they know about the property which would tend to lower the price, and they must tell the seller anything they know about the buyer's situation which might tend to raise the price. The only exception is a statute which says that the agents cannot tell the buyer that the seller is willing to accept a lower price and cannot tell the seller that the buyer is willing to accept a higher price.