The preparation of a counteroffer allows you as the seller and your agent to take control of negotiations after a prospective buyer submits a purchase offer. Your agent, on receiving a prospective buyer’s offer, will review with you:

• The terms offered and contingency provisions — conditions — which affect closing;
• The likely net sales proceeds the offer will generate; and
• Their knowledge about the profit tax liability you will likely incur on the sale when the property is not your primary residence.

A counteroffer is made when the terms and conditions of the buyer’s offer are for any reason unacceptable without a change. Your agent prepares your written counteroffer and reviews it with you before you sign it and your agent submits it to the buyer. Your signed counteroffer documents your intent to be bound by your offer to sell when the buyer accepts.

To counter a buyer’s unacceptable purchase offer, your agent may recommend that they:

• Prepare your counteroffer on a new purchase agreement form;
• Prepare your counteroffer on a counteroffer form;
• Dictate escrow instructions based on terms and conditions orally negotiated with the buyer (or buyer’s agent);
• Set up an auction environment by calling for the submission of all “best and final” offers in a multiple-offer situation; or
• Orally advise the buyer’s agent about the changes they need to make before you will accept the buyer’s offer.

The buyer may agree to purchase your property on the terms stated in your counteroffer by merely signing the counteroffer and delivering it as accepted, or submit a counteroffer back to you for
further negotiations.

A: If you’re a California homeowner aged 55 or older, you have a once-in-a-lifetime right to sell your home and carry forward its current assessed
value to a replacement residence of equal or lesser value.

To qualify to carry forward the current assessed value:

• You need to own and occupy the home sold as well as the replacement home;
• Both homes must be eligible for the homeowner’s $7,000 property tax exemption;
• You or your spouse must be at least 55 years old or severely and permanently disabled on the closing date of the sale of your old home;
• You need to purchase (or construct) a replacement home of equal or lesser value than the home you sold
• The replacement residence must be located:
  • In the same county as the property sold; or
  • Within another participating county; and
  • The purchase (or construction) of the replacement home needs to close (or construction completed) within two years before or after closing the sale of your old home.

When your replacement home is not within the same county as the home you sold, the county of your replacement property needs to be a participating county which allows the carry-forward assessment from your prior county.

Currently participating counties include Alameda, El Dorado, Los Angeles,
Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Tuolumne and Ventura counties (subject to change).

Only one carry-forward assessment exemption is allowed per married couple. For example, if a married couple takes a carry-forward assessment exemption, and one spouse later dies, the surviving spouse may not take a carry-forward assessment exemption even if they later remarry.

When you and a co-owner both reside in the home and are not married, you both individually qualify for the carry-forward assessment. However, on the sale, only one of you may use the exemption.

Thus, the co-owner who does not apply for the exemption is precluded from any future use of the assessment carry-forward tax relief.

The only exception is when you become severely and permanently disabled after receiving the carryforward tax relief due to your age. In this case, you
may use the exemption a second time under a separate claim due to the disability.

Information for Buyers

• In some situations sellers will have several competing purchase offers to consider. Sellers have several ways to deal with multiple offers. Sellers can accept the “best” offer; they can inform all potential purchasers that other offers are “on the table”; they can “counter” one offer while putting the other offers to the side awaiting a decision on the counter-offer; or they can “counter” one offer and reject the others.

• While the listing broker can offer suggestions and advice, decisions about how offers will be presented – and dealt with – are made by the seller – not by the listing broker.

• There are advantages and disadvantages to the various negotiating strategies you can employ in multiple offer negotiations. A low initial offer may result in buying the property you desire for less than the listed price – or it may result in another buyer’s higher offer being accepted. On the other hand, a full price offer may result in paying more than the seller might have required. In some cases there can be several full price offers competing for the seller’s attention – and acceptance.

• Your buyer-representative (agent) will explain and advise on the pros and cons of these (and possibly other) negotiating strategies. The final decision, however, is yours to make.

• Purchase offers generally aren’t confidential. In some cases sellers may make other buyers aware that your offer is in hand, or even disclose details about your offer to another buyer in hope of convincing that buyer to make a “better” offer. In some cases sellers will instruct their listing broker to disclose an offer to other buyers on their behalf.

• Listing brokers (the sellers representative) are required to follow lawful, ethical instructions from their clients in the same way that buyer-representatives must follow lawful, ethical instructions from their buyer-clients. While some REALTORS® may be reluctant to disclose terms of offers, even at the direction of their seller-clients, the Code of Ethics does not prohibit such disclosure. In some cases state law or real estate regulations may limit the ability of brokers to disclose the existence or terms of offers to third parties.

• You may want to discuss with your buyer-representative the possibility of making your offer confidential, or of establishing a confidentiality agreement between yourself and the seller prior to commencing negotiations.

• Realize that as a represented buyer, your broker likely has other buyer-clients, some of whom may be interested in the same properties as you are. Ask your broker how offers and counter-offers will be presented and negotiated if more than one of his buyer-clients are trying to buy the same property.

• Appreciate that your buyer-representative’s advice is based on past experience and is no guarantee as to how any particular seller will act (or react) in a specific situation.

Information for Sellers

• It’s possible you may be faced with multiple competing offers to purchase your property. Your listing broker can explain various negotiating strategies for you to consider. For example, you can accept the “best” offer; you can inform all potential purchasers that other offers are “on the table” and invite them to make their “best” offer; you can “counter” one offer while putting the other offers to the side awaiting a decision on your counter-offer; or you can “counter” one offer and reject the others.

• If you have questions about the possibility of multiple offers and the way they can be dealt with, ask your listing broker to explain your options and alternatives.

• Realize that each of these approaches has advantages and disadvantages. Patience may result in an even better offer being received; inviting buyers to make their “best” offers may produce an offer (or offers) better than those “on the table” – or may discourage buyers who feel they’ve already made a fair offer resulting in them breaking off negotiations to pursue other properties. Your listing broker will explain the pros and cons of these strategies (and possibly other) negotiating strategies. The decisions, however, are yours to make.

• Appreciate that your listing broker’s advice is based on past experience and is no guarantee about how any particular buyer will act (or react) in a specific situation.

Information for Buyers and Sellers

Perhaps no situation facing buyers or sellers is more potentially frustrating or fraught with potential for misunderstanding and for missed opportunity than presenting and negotiating multiple, competing offers to purchase the same property. Consider the following issues and dynamics:

• Sellers want to get the highest price and best terms for their property.

• Buyers want to buy at the lowest price and on the most favorable terms.

• Listing brokers – acting on behalf of sellers – represent sellers’ interests.

• Buyer representatives represent the interests of their buyer-clients.

• Will a seller disclosing information about one buyer’s offer make a second buyer more likely to make a full price offer? Or will that second buyer pursue a different property?

• Will telling several buyers that each is being given a chance to make their “best offer” result in spirited competition for the seller’s property? Or will it result in the buyers looking elsewhere?

• What’s fair? What’s honest? Why isn’t there a single, simple way to deal with multiple competing offers?

Knowledgeable buyers and sellers realize there are rarely simple answers to complex situations. But some fundamental principles can make negotiating multiple offers a little simpler.

• Realize the listing broker represents the seller – and the seller’s interests, and the buyer-representative represents the buyer – and the buyer’s interests. Real estate professionals are subject to state real estate regulation and, if they are REALTORS®, to the Code of Ethics of the National Association of REALTORS®.

• The Code of Ethics obligates REALTORS® to be honest with all parties; to present offers and counter-offers quickly and objectively; and to cooperate with other brokers. Cooperation involves sharing of relevant information.

• Frequently frustration and misunderstanding results from cooperating brokers being unaware of the status of offers they have presented on behalf of their buyer-clients. Listing brokers should make reasonable efforts to keep buyer-representatives up-to-date on the status of offers. Similarly, buyer-representatives should keep listing brokers informed about the status of counter-offers their seller-clients have made.

Finally, buyers and sellers need to appreciate that in multiple offer situations only one offer will result in a sale, and the other buyers will often be disappointed their offers were not accepted. While little can be done to assuage that disappointment, fair and honest treatment throughout the offer and negotiation process, coupled with prompt, ongoing and open communication, can enhance the chances that all buyers – successful or not – will feel they were treated fairly and honestly.

A: Environmental hazards are man-made hazards such as noxious or annoying conditions, not natural hazards that exist at the location of the property.

As environmental hazards, the conditions are classified as either:
• Injurious to the health of humans; or
• An interference with an individual’s sensitivities.

Environmental hazards are defects in a property affecting its use by humans. If known to a prospective buyer, the defects may affect a prospective buyer’s decision to purchase the property. Thus, the environmental conditions are material facts. When known to the seller or the agents participating in a transaction, environmental hazards are to be disclosed to prospective buyers since material facts adversely affect
the property’s value.

Environmental hazards located on the property which pose a direct health threat to occupants include:
• Asbestos-containing building materials;
• Carbon monoxide;
• Formaldehyde;
• Hazardous waste;
• Lead;
• Toxic mold; and
• Radon gas concentrations.

The seller’s agent conducts a visual inspection of the property for visible environmental hazards, as well as physical defects, before reviewing the seller-prepared Transfer Disclosure Statement (TDS) for correctness.

On review of the TDS, the agent enters on it any of their observations inconsistent with the seller’s entries to correct the TDS for seller errors or oversights. The TDS becomes one document in the marketing package used to induce buyers to acquire the property.

The timing for delivery of the TDS to prospective buyer as a disclosure is as soon as practicable (ASAP) after the buyer or their agent makes an inquiry seeking further information on the listed property, usually by delivery of a marketing package which includes the TDS.

Also, the seller’s agent delivers, or confirms the buyer’s agent has handed the prospective buyer a copy of the environmental hazard booklet approved by the California Department of Health and Safety (DHS).

The seller is not obligated to hire a third party to investigate and report on whether an environmental hazard is present on or about the property. It is the seller’s and the seller’s agent’s knowledge about hazardous environmental conditions affecting the property which is disclosed on the
TDS.

A: Ownership of a unit in a condominium project or other residential common interest development (CID) includes compulsory membership in the project’s homeowners’ association (HOA). The HOA is in charge
of managing and operating the entire project.

The obligations you undertake when you purchase a unit in a CID, and the HOA’s documentation of those obligations, fall into two classifications:

• Use restrictions contained in the HOA’s:
• Articles of incorporation;
• By-laws;
• Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions (CC&Rs) of record;
• Age restriction statements; and
• Operating rules.
• Financial obligations to pay assessments as documented in annual reports which include:
• Pro forma operating budgets;
• A Certified Public Accountant’s (CPA’s) financial review;
• An assessment of collections and the
• Collections enforcement policy;
• An insurance policy summary;
• A list of construction defects; and
• Any notice of changes made in assessments not yet due and payable.

There are two types of assessment charges to fund the expenditures of the HOA:

1. Regular assessments fund the operating budget to pay for the cost of maintaining the common areas. Regular assessments are set annually and are due and payable in monthly installments.
2. Special assessments are levied to pay for the cost of repairs and replacements that exceed the amount anticipated and funded by the regular assessments. Special assessments are generally due and payable in a lump sum on a date set by the HOA when making the assessment or added to the regular assessment monthly installments for a specified amount of time.

Annual increases in the dollar amount levied as regular assessments are limited to a 20% increase in the regular assessment over the prior year. An increase in special assessments is limited to 5% of the prior year’s
budgeted expenses.

It is recommended you review all readily available HOA information with your agent before making an offer. With this information, you and your agent are able to better determine the price you will pay for the unit and whether or not you have the ability (and desire) to carry the cost of ownership after acquisition.

What is a credit freeze?

A credit freeze limits access to your credit report, making it more difficult for would-be identity thieves to open accounts in your name. You can still use your credit card normally, but you won’t be able to open new lines of credit.

How do I freeze my credit?

To place a freeze on your credit report, contact all three major credit reporting agencies:

Equifax: 800-349-9960
Website

Experian: 888-397-3742
Website

TransUnion: 888-909-8872
Website

You’ll be asked to provide personal information to verify your identity, and may be a fee, depending on your age and where you live.

Are there drawbacks to a credit freeze?

The protection a credit freeze offers isn’t perfect. Credit freezes only prevent new lines of credit from being opened in your name — if an identity thief already has access to one of your accounts, a credit freeze is not an effective line of defense.

In addition, a credit freeze remains active until you decide to unfreeze it. To unfreeze your credit report and open a new line of credit, you’ll have to contact each credit reporting agency with the PIN number given to you at the time of the initial freeze. A fee may be charged for unfreezing your credit.