Live Means Accountable

A house that is lived in can keep its faults to itself. A house on the market has to answer for them.

While the owner lives there, the damp patch behind the wardrobe and the bedroom window that never quite closes are private matters. Once an agent is mandated to sell, the seller completes a disclosure form listing the defects they know about, and that form goes with the offer to purchase.

Some sellers keep the list short out of nerves. The logic runs the other way. A fault written down before the sale is a fault the buyer saw and priced in, and it cannot easily return as a complaint. A fault left off is a dispute waiting for the first wet season after transfer, and the voetstoots clause offers little shelter to a seller who knew.

The useful lists are specific. Rising damp in the main bedroom, treated, still being watched. A crack in the boundary wall, assessed by a builder as cosmetic. A buyer reading lines like those knows what is being bought, and sales built on that kind of list tend to stay closed after registration.