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Probate Home Offers Not Accepted. Probate Realtor, Kathleen Daniels, explains the issues she encounters with offers she receives on the homes she lists for sale.
Kathleen often wonders why other real estate agents lack training, most especially in completing contracts. After all, the contracts memorialize in writing the meeting of the minds of the parties. This is not just an issue with the purchase of a probate home or a home sold via the trust administration process.
Buying a Probate Home
The parties to a purchase agreement are the buyer and the seller. Let us not forget that a fully executed contract is legally binding on the parties. Real estate agents are not a party to a contract between the buyer and seller. Contracts must be completed fully and executed properly. A real estate agent that neglects the details and/or turns a blind eye to them may potentially cause their client harm.
How? Because contracts are legally binding. Poorly executed contracts are what keep attorneys thriving. If things go south, people lawyer up. Lawyers comb through the contracts (that is what the parties agreed to do or not do) and look for ways to defend their clients. We won’t go deep down that rabbit hole here. The main point is that real estate agents in general, and those representing clients buying a house under probate or purchasing a home from a trust estate administrator need to understand the contracts and the importance of completing them correctly!
Kathleen does not expect other real estate agents to have Kathleen’s experience and qualifications she brings to the table. However, there is a general expectation they know how to properly complete the contracts.
Kathleen is the Broker-Owner of NeedProbateHelp.com. She specializes in probate real estate services which of course include homes sold by a successor trustee of a family trust and a Conservatorship.
A real estate agent writing an offer on behalf of their buyer client does not necessarily need probate realtor training when submitting an offer on one of Kathleen’s listed homes. The reason they do not need training in probate real estate sales 101 is that Kathleen “levels the playing field” by providing detailed offer writing instructions. The only thing the agent needs to know is, how to read and follow instructions, including, to call if you have any questions! It is okay for Kathleen to work with an agent that does not know the probate property sale procedure, has probate training, or has CPRES training. Kathleen speaks the language of probate and will answer all questions and explain the process.
Despite the time and effort probate real estate agent, Kathleen Daniels puts forth to level the playing field and make it easier for agents with less experience and agents that do not have an understanding of the contracts, and frankly agents with many years of experience as licensed real estate agents, she consistently receives offers that cannot be accepted. The number one reason offers cannot be accepted is not the offer price!
Probate Home Offers Not Accepted – WHY?
What follows speaks to the purchase offers specifically received by Kathleen Daniels on the homes she lists for sale.
Number One Reason: Contracts are poorly written and incomplete.
A Few Examples:
- The date of the contract is missing
- Names of the parties (one or both Buyer or Seller are missing)
- The close of escrow is blank
- Documents the contract indicates are attached, are not attached (lender approval letters and proof of funds)
- The required addendums are missing
- The buyer agent completed a part of the contract that the listing agent is supposed to complete
- Initials are missing where they are required
What does Kathleen’s Risk Management attorney have to say about this?
“sloppy” “lazy agent” “not fulfilling their fiduciary duty to their client”
Definition of Sloppy: careless and unsystematic
Kathleen agrees with all of the above. However, the best way to serve her clients, the seller, is not to call the agent and tell them they are lazy, the offer is sloppy, and/or they are not fulfilling their fiduciary duty to their client.
The best way to serve her client is to prepare a counteroffer to plug the holes in the contract. Paragraph by paragraph fills in the blank spaces with dates, names, and actions that need to be taken, like providing documents, etc.
These days, that is exactly what Kathleen does.
What has proven not to work well is marking up the contract in red illustrating the areas that need to be completed and sending it to the buyer’s agent to correct and resubmit. Ideally, we want a clean offer that can be accepted without the need to submit a counteroffer to complete the contract properly.
The reason that method has failed to work is that the corrected offer, when resubmitted, still has errors! This costs more time in getting the home under contract when we have a meeting of the minds, yet the contract has flaws.
At the highest level, Kathleen believes that everyone is doing the best they can, at the moment, with the resources available to them.
How Can Incomplete Offers Harm a Buyer?
What if there is more than one offer?
What if another offer was received that was perfectly written and all the supporting documents were provided?
More likely than not, all things otherwise created equal, the offer that was perfectly written and does not require a counteroffer is the offer the seller will accept.
A buyer may never know the truth about why their offer was not accepted. When escrow closes, the sale is reported and becomes public information. The buyer whose offer was not accepted will see the final sale price. They will see the sold price is the same as what they offered.
As a standard of practice, Kathleen would never tell a buyer’s agent their offer was not accepted because it was poorly written and needed a counteroffer in order to accept it. Even if she did, let us not believe for one second that the agent will their client the reason.
Probate Realtor
We share the reasons an offer may not be accepted on a probate home or a home sold via the trust administration process to let the public know that real estate is not one size fits all and real estate agents, including probate real estate agents, are not created equal.
Knowledge, training, and experience make a difference.
If you need help selling a probate home, or a trust estate home, contact Kathleen Daniels and request a consultation.