Seller Concession in Listings

Excerpted from an email by Dave Towne:

"Appraisers have [a] legal obligation to report any known Comparable Property seller sales concessions on the Fannie/Freddie forms.

However, the attorney for the Washington Association of Realtors has advised Realtor members that they have ‘no obligation to disclose’ concession information if an appraiser calls an Agent for that information. They are treating that as confidential information between seller and buyer as a way to protect the ‘selling price’ of the property. The attorney has also stated that individual Brokerages can establish their own disclosure policy if they so choose.

If an appraiser suspects that there might be a sales concession (to a comparable property), makes a call to the Agent, but the Agent refuses to disclose, the appraiser can include a statement in the report about this, to include the Agent name, Brokerage name, and phone number. This can even be done when the sale info is verified with the listing or sales Agent, even though it appears that no concession was used.

This is the only way I know of for how to protect ourselves. If Agents refuse to cooperate, we have the right to disclose who we talked with to try to obtain information to meet our legal obligation."