Seller Not Trusting Contracted RE Agents

[bbronston]

Originally Posted by SmartMoney

This is a commonly misunderstood concept among Realtors and builders. Lenders are not parties to the contract and no verbiage can give us permission to discuss our customers' loans with anyone (other than third part contracted services, such as appraisal companies or credit reporting companies). The way privacy laws are written, violating a customers privacy yields criminal and civil penalties for any form of violation. You can't erase federal laws with a real estate contract. That said, I don't know a loan officer anywhere that doesn't flirt with crossing the line to advocate for their buyer. But, please respect that line - it's easy to forget it's there. The very limited questions we are allowed to answer (but many do answer more) would not have prevented any of this from happening.

I did not mean to imply that personal and confidential information could be shared. I would never expect that to be the case. In our contract, the buyer only authorizes the lender to discuss the "status and progress" of the loan with the seller and agent. Are you saying that is a violation of federal law? If so, I think I'll bring that up with my state organization.

[br1n]

Did you really lose anything other than some time? The repairs would most likely need to be done for any buyer. Frustrating situation for sure but it doesn't look like the agents deserve any of the blame.

[snowlady09]

Thanks everyone for the input. Had a showing yesterday. We watched the young couple on our neighbors deck. The showing lasted 1 hour. The couple walked all over the property and were inside for over 1/2 hour. Showing agent left card and said Beautiful property & clean. Father needs to see property. Well they came back 2 hours later with Dad and went into the crawl space, opened septic cover,deck, and then inside. They came back outside and I heard the young woman say "we put a nice garden here". A good sign. That lasted another hour. So my agent called and said they loved the house and property. We'll see. We will never ever own another house. This is #3 and each buy/sell was a nightmare. Happy Independence Day! God Bless The USA

[snowlady09]

So we signed another contract. We are happy but with reservations. We have the buyers pre-approval letter.They are putting 20% down. So this is another contract after being back on the market 5 days. I guess the house is priced right and I must say it is spotless. We shall see. We will wait this time to call Mayflower moving. Hope we can push the clsing date up a bit. Can't wait to get to North Carolina. //www.city-data.com/forum/image...ies/oglvvd.gif

[SmartMoney]

Originally Posted by bbronston

I did not mean to imply that personal and confidential information could be shared. I would never expect that to be the case. In our contract, the buyer only authorizes the lender to discuss the "status and progress" of the loan with the seller and agent. Are you saying that is a violation of federal law? If so, I think I'll bring that up with my state organization.

I actually do believe you should bring that up with State. Ever call someone at Bank of America for a status on something that is not your account? Technically, yes, everything about that customer's file is confidential. This is a very blurred line, and I believe, just a matter of time before it gets sharpened.

Put that down as my prediction for the near future....narrow, defined release of information on a customer. It's just begging to be challenged.