Marshal Granor, Esq., CCAL Granor & Granor


A number of states have limits on fees an association or management company may charge to prepare documentation and certify a property prior to settlement. A new bill recently introduced in the legislature seeks to do the same in our state. The Pennsylvania Legislative Action Committee (PA LAC) is hopeful to be able to resolve this issue through dialogue with the bill sponsors and the Pennsylvania Association of Realtors®.


Realtors® are members of the National Association of Realtors® (NAR), but not every licensed real estate agent is a member of NAR. NAR has a Code of Ethics all members must follow, and it also has one of the largest political action committees of all the national trade associations. When NAR or its state associations speak, they have the attention of politicians.


What is their beef with us? “Resale certificates cost too much!”


They also complain that it takes too long to get the information, or that the association (or manager) requires too much information from the agent to start the certification process.


I’ve been teaching continuing education classes to CAI members


and to Realtors® for several decades, and I hear this ALL THE TIME. Property managers just go off -the-rails when an agent calls on a Friday afternoon at 4:00 PM and says they need a resale certificate for a closing Monday morning at 9:00 AM. They can’t understand why a property manager needs payment before we do any work, or why the agent must log onto our website or a third-party site and pay for this information. They complain that some property managers charge an additional fee for a rushed certificate.


From the property management side, we can’t understand why the agent waited until the last minute. Didn’t they know about this sale months ago? Don’t they understand property managers have other work to get done and it is time- consuming to generate a resale certificate?


I teach agents to order the resale package when they first list the property for sale. Why? Because a buyer may cancel the sale at any time until they have the complete package plus additional time to review it. Better to lose a sale early than the day of closing. But some CAI members won’t issue the resale documents until just days before closing. When asked why, they reply, “because we always did it that way.” That is not the right answer!


We all see the world through our own eyes. It is often hard to understand the perspective of the other person because their work looks easy to us. But having been both a Realtor® and a property manager, I understand where that middle ground can be found.


Real estate agents need to see a list of what property managers or associations do for the fees charged, so they understand our process:


Assembling and transmitting the governing documents, including all Declaration amendments and even up-to- the-minute Rules and Regulations changes;


 Providing accurate and complete financial information. This includes updated assessment payments, any fees or fines, any liens on the property and any impending special assessment;


Visiting the property to look for current violations;


Reviewing the property records to see if there are any non-conforming physical elements to the property and, if there are, do they have to be removed prior to the sale;


 Collecting any transfer or other fees due upon closing;


(Connued on page 32) www.cai-padelval.org 31


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