Get Out of Jail Free Card for Realtors
Wow!Just when you thought Texas was already THE most business friendly state in the country, the Texas Legislature is considering giving all real estate agents a "Get ofJail Free Card" by exempting them from the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act.This is extraordinary but it has been tried before.
The Texas Real Estate lobby is powerful with tens of thousands of members and all of that money that they make directly off of consumers.So naturally, they want to skew the law to exclude them from misrepresentations.So is that so bad?Let's take a look.
1.Every real estate transaction involves two consumers - the buyer who is buying the property but also the seller because they are a consumer of the real estate services of the listing broker.
2.The nature of real estate is that 100 percent of the communication is between the real estate agents.The buyer and seller never communicate with each other.
3.Exempting the real estate agents from the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act means that the real estate agents can control the flow of information without any concern for whether it is accurate.
4.As a consequence of no check or balance against inaccurate information, the real estate agent will then have the opportunity to "close the sale" with hard sell tactics that would not be subject to scrutiny and review.
5.The subsequent tens of thousands of real estate transactions in Texas will be governed solely by the individual moral fiber of each real estate agent.
6.The resulting misrepresentations made by the actual real estate agent will become the responsibility of the seller.
7.The end result will be that both consumers will be harmed because sellers will bear the brunt of misrepresentations made by their "agent" and the consumer will be damaged by the agents motivated to close the deal without concern for truthful and accurate information.
What can you do?Well you can contact your Texas legislator and the members of the committee considering changing this law:
To find your legislator: http://www.fyi.legis.state.tx.us/
To contact the governor: http://governor.state.tx.us/contact/
The bill: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/BillLookup/history.aspx?LegSess=82R&Bill=SB1353
Here are the committee members that will decide the fate of every future homebuyer in Texas.
john.whitmire@senate.state.tx.us
No known connection to realtors.