Who You Know

Within the last 11 hours I got two phone calls from past clients asking me for advice. Both were related to sellers who have their homes in a trust. 

Phone call 1: Seller (his grandmother-in-law) is 94. Her home is in a trust and the real estate agent is asking for the trust documents because the house is now in escrow. Does she need to provide these documents to the agent? I should mention, the house is in another state. 

After going through, "I'm not licensed in that state and this is my best unofficial-off-the-record guess," disclaimer, I gave him this: in order to convey title, the title company needs to prove who owns the property. If the home is in a trust, the title company has to verify this. If the agent is calling, the seller probably ignored the 583 phone calls/text messages/smoke signals from the title company and is now asking the agent to help get this document. If the seller is unwilling to give this to the agent (and please! Be unwilling to give this to the agent, IT IS NOT INFORMATION THE AGENT NEEDS TO KNOW), she can have her attorney directly contact the title officer and coordinate the right documentation. 

"What if she just doesn't want to provide it?" my caller asked. 

Flashbacks of some of my more difficult clients doing just that raced through my head and I could see this playing out. But, I didn't share what a nightmare that might be. Instead, I said, "Most likely the seller's listing contract included language about the seller being cooperative throughout the sale. That would include providing the right paperwork in a timely manner to make the sale close. The buyer can sue for specific performance if the seller doesn't cooperate." 

"Oh good! I will tell her she can be sued. That'll make her cooperate," he said. 

Phone call 2: The seller (his father-in-law) passed away this morning. His house is currently for sale with another agent in Phoenix and what happens now? 

I started with, "Because the home is listed for sale with another agent, I cannot give you real estate advice." Which is true. It would be a serious ethics breach under the circumstances. But the longer answer is yes, the home is still for sale even if the owner passes away. It is in a trust and my caller's wife is on title of the home, the executor of the will and the sole surviving member of the trust. I did tell him to call the agent and she would (hopefully) know what to do. If not, she should ask her broker who will (hopefully) know what to do. 

Hypothetically, as an agent, I would have gone to my most competent escrow officer, opened escrow* and had my escrow officer immediately ask for all of the current and necessary documentation, such as the death certificate and trust documents to make sure there wasn't any glitches. They can handle that part. 

Sometimes my job includes just knowing who to talk to.

*On a side note, you don't need to have a buyer and seller to open escrow. The seller can open it when they list the house. It can be a messy project, but under the circumstances I'd rather have someone I trust handling this kind of thing than an escrow officer I don't know who's been on the job two weeks.