So often in a real estate transaction, you will hear your Realtor talk about a BINSR or a SPDS (pronounced SPUDS). Do you need to know these terms? Not really, but yah, you probably should! You will most likely hear your agent call these reports by those names when talking with other industry professionals who are working on your transaction. For example, the title company, your lender, a handyman, your home inspector and now YOU (Yay!) will use these terms quite a bit.
So what's the lowdown with these acronyms? Every industry has their lingo. Your doctor, nurses and pharmacists all have yet another language that they use and even teachers and school administrations have their own language. Have you heard of a Dibbles test? If not, ask your child's teacher! Have you been 86'd from a bar or restaurant? (I hope not!) Maybe you have heard a server yell "86 the onions" meaning, the restaurant is out of onions OR the order you are taking doesn't want onions. If you have been 86'd from the restaurant or bar, it means you have been removed! LOL!
I digress!! BINSR means Buyer's Inspection Notice Seller's Notice. Once you have an accepted offer on a house you are buying, your real estate agent will set up a home inspection. The home inspector will give you a detailed report with all items that he deems necessary (of course, these are state rules and regulations that the inspector abides by) to bring to your attention. You and your agent will sit down and decide which items to put on this document. When you do this, you are asking for the items to be repaired. This document is called the BINSR. Your agent will write the BINSR up on your behalf and send it over to the seller's agent. Then, the seller's agent will show the document to their clients and then they decide if they will make the repairs, not make the repairs or offer money in lieu of repairs.
Now the SPDS! SPDS means Seller Property Disclosure Statement. This is a pretty good document. When you are selling your house, this is the document where you want to disclose everything. It will be provided to you by your Realtor during your listing appointment OR shortly after that appointment. This is the time to dislose whether or not you hear trains at night, write that in the document. You saw a scorpion once in 20 years that you lived there, write it down. Your hot water doesn't work on the right hand side sink in the master bathroom, ya' get my drift. Write it down! Disclose as much as you can to protect yourself. Your real estate agent can not fill it out for you, you have to do the heavy lifting on this document; but for your protection, disclose, disclose, disclose!!
Get a CLUE!! Technically, CLUE stands for Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange. This is just fancy for a five year insurance claims history report from you homeowner's insurance provider. If you have had multiple insurance carriers in the past 5 years, you will need to request a CLUE report from each company as long as you go back 5 years. Sounds cray cray, right? Not really. This just lets the buyer know what they are buying. For example, you had a water pipe burst in the house and you had to call the homeowners insurance to get someone out to your house to clean up that mess. Well, my friend, you just made a claim on your insurance policy. This will stay on the permanent record of the house. It's kind of like carfax for your car, but this is giving you the history on the house. So, you can see how if you don't disclose the water pipe that burst in the SPDS that it will show up on the CLUE report. When an agent receives both documents from the seller, chances are that they will read them pretty thoroughly. AND (pretty important here) your home inspector will also report that he has noticed past water damage and remediation as well in his/her report, so you want to disclose as much as you can in the SPDS because chances are that if you don't, it will show up on your CLUE report or the inspector will find evidence of a past issue during the inspection.
My best advice to you friends is if you are selling your home, disclose what you know. It might be a good idea to go over this report with your spouse or whomever has lived in that house as long as you have. You might be immune to the loud train horms blaring at 3 am every morning, but someone who is a light sleeper will flip out if this wakes them up every morning at the same time! (not that I have experienced this, Jeff Kooi!)
On the flip side, if you are buying your house, utilize your 10 day inspection period--or due diligence period--to get as many inspections done on your house as you see fit. This is the time to test for mold, test the HVAC system, call a pool inspector to check out the cracks on a 10 year old pool. You never want to skimp out on this time to do all of your research on the home
Did this information make sense? It is always my goal to write these blogs as clearly as I can. It is my job to exceed the expectations of those I work with whether I am representing the buyer or the seller in a transaction. If you have questions or comments please holla'! Contact me CamilleKooi@gmail.com or 480-226-7436!
Until Next Time Peeps!
Camille
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*Disclaimer: I do not claim to be a professional writer nor am I am proficient in where to place commas, when to italicize (or is it appropriate to italicize or use parenthesis?) and that my sentences are grammatically correct. I am merely releasing all the thoughts that are in my brain and sharing them with you. If you enjoy my posts GREAT but I know they are written with many errors. Taking a creative writing class or a grammar class is next on my “to do” list. I promise. I also like to use double exclamation points!!!! (sometimes more than 2 and sometime a question mark and exclamation point!) I am NOT a licensed mortgage lender, property manager, credit expert, professional negotiator or anything of that nature.. This is strictly "good info" to know regarding Real Estate as I learn it on the job!
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