Is There Any Nova Law About Realtor Signs? (for sale, rent)

[Caladium]

Does anyone know if there is a local regulation that can force realtors to remove their for sale signs after a property is sold?

We have a house on our street that went up for sale about 2 1/2 months ago. It sold in 2 weeks. The new family moved in over a week ago, yet the sign is still there. Meanwhile another house on the street is now for sale, and it looks bad to have two houses on the same street with a sign out.

The new homeowners are shy and are afraid to remove the sign themselves or push the realtor to remove it. I'm willing to take it down, but I don't I know it's cool to remove a realtor's sign. The realtor has been seen in the neighborhood recently and my neighbors say they've asked her to remove it, but she ignores the requests.

Any ideas?

[ghett61]

You can call the number on the sign. Ask if the house is for sale. If they say no it is not, then tell them that the sign is still up. I know if this happened at the office my wife works at then someone would be sent that day to get the sign and who ever left it out would get chewed out since it makes the office look bad.

[brooklynborndad]

why dont you just stick a politician's sign right in front of it?

[JD984]

I don't know why having two signs on one block is a big deal. It's spring, so wouldn't you expect more activity? In our neighborhood, we have several for sale signs, one house that just got torn down for a rebuild, one major renovation that's close to being finished, and one incredibly big house (at least 8500 SF) that's gone unfinished for years, after the builder couldn't get construction financing to complete the job. I think that's probably not unusual for a lot of inside-the-Beltway neighborhoods these days. Two "for sale" signs on one block would be downright peaceful.

You could ask the new neighbors more forcefully to take down the whole sign. I don't see why they should care about the listing agent's feelings if they've already closed.

Perhaps you could pretend to be a strong wind and blow down the "Under Contract" or "Sold" part of the sign. Without that, your new neighbors will have more of an incentive to take action, since they won't want people to think their house is still on the market, and the agent will get calls about a house that's already sold and/or cease to get the free advertising about a recent sale.

When we bought a new house a few years ago, we were surprised by how long the builder/agent kept their signs up. No one complained to us about it, though; had they done so, we would have called and/or taken the sign down ourselves. Then, one day it just disappeared, presumably to be redeployed elsewhere in NoVa.

[Margery]

The new owner can take the sign down, the house and lot now belong to them and no one can have a sign there without their permission. The post probably belongs to Realty Sign Post, they can call them at 202-256-0107 and tell them to remove the post.

[Catamounts]

Happened to us - the sellers' realtor just "forgot" to pick her sign up. I called her twice about it, nothing happened so we removed it ourselves.
But then again, we dealt with realtors who don't seem to care for their clients after the contract is signed...

[smagid]

Many times REALTORS in the area use sign companies to install and remove their signs. Sometimes these sign companies are very slow at removing them.

[Caladium]

Originally Posted by Margery

The new owner can take the sign down, the house and lot now belong to them and no one can have a sign there without their permission. The post probably belongs to Realty Sign Post, they can call them at 202-256-0107 and tell them to remove the post.

Thanks for the tip--the call has been made. Hopefully they will come get it soon.

[stpickrell]

After we bought one house, the listing agent was very slow to pick up the lockbox -- after a week in which two phone calls and daily emails failed to convince him to remove it, we called him and said if it wasn't removed by the end of the next day, we'd get some bolt cutters.

It was removed.

And yes, not sure why the new neighbors are so worried aboot the listing agent's feelings.

[djplourd]

A couple of years ago when the "for rent" was still up a couple of weeks after we'd moved in I removed it myself. I left it laying in the yard and it mysteriously disappeared on trash day. After another week or two the company finally came around looking for it -- too late.