For the second time in my brokerage, I contacted the Legal Hotline. The Legal Hotline is for brokers only and gives us direct access to a lawyer to answer our questions.
My question was simply, does a landlord, who is selling a house, have to disclose that their tenant is a sex offender?
In AZ, a seller does not have to disclose a sex offender in the general vicinity of the property for sale, but given a buyer might consider this scenario a material issue to the actual sale of the house, I needed to be sure. My seller wants to sell. The seller has a tenant with a questionable past in place. You get the idea.
The attorney at Legal Hotline told me 'tis better to over disclose than see a jury. A jury will not be sympathetic to someone "forgetting" to mention they are selling a home with a a sex offender living in it.
Of note, I asked a few brokers this question just to see what they had to say (this was prior to the attorney giving me the answer I'm abiding with). Most of my broker friends said, no, we don't legally have to disclose. Though I agree, I also am going to side with the attorney. Its better to be cautious than be sued.
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