MANDATORY DISCLOSURES AND OPTIONAL DISCLOSURES DATA FIELDS 

Since the June 10, 2008 Tempo publish RSC has received a number of emails and calls from brokers with concerns about the new Mandatory Disclosures and Optional Disclosures data fields. 

Previously, the PPMLS system contained a data field called “Sales Conditions.”  This field required that the listing broker select at least one of the data field choices, or the choice “Not Applicable”. 

At the November 28, 2007 meeting the RSC Board of Directors entertained a request that was submitted from a participating broker, to review the requirement to disclose in Sales Conditions if a property was in Pre-Foreclosure.  The concern was that by requiring this information to be disclosed at the time the listing was input in PPMLS, the listing broker may be violating their fiduciary responsibilities to their seller.  RSC legal counsel was asked to review the matter and bring a recommendation to the RSC.   

The issue was discussed again on December 19, 2007, and again on January 23, 2008.  The recommendation was to have two separate disclosure fields; one which required disclosure of certain information, and the other that allowed disclosure at the discretion of the listing broker.   The following motions were approved: 

MOTION:  To implement the following changes:

a.    Temporarily modify the PPMLS Staff Webs table to reflect optional and mandatory choices in Sales Conditions field.

b.    Submit programming changes to rename Sales Conditions to Optional Disclosures, and to create a new field for Mandatory Disclosures. 

The permanent recommendations were implemented with the June 10, 2008 publish. 

RSC concluded that, based on current Colorado law, it is not good practice to mandate that a broker disclose information in a PPMLS listing that may be considered a motivating factor of his seller, for example, “pre-foreclosure”. This does not mean that one or more of the optional disclosures are not required. In fact, it is highly likely that a “short-sale” scenario must be disclosed to a buyer at or before the contract is signed.  In addition, although a disclosure may not be mandatory, it may still be in the best interest of the seller to make such a disclosure in the PPMLS listing.  

Therefore, RSC has determined that at this time it will not require the disclosure of Pre-Foreclosure, Short Sale, or various other choices under Optional Disclosures at the time of listing input into the PPMLS system.