LIMITED SERVICE AGENCY

YES, IT'S TRUE. AFTER NINE SPLENDID YEARS we're selling our wonderful home in NW Washington DC. As a licensed Virginia realtor, I am limited as a FSBO (for sale by owner) in the degree of ordinary realty services I can provide to myself as my own representative in a jurisdiction other than the one in which I am licensed. One of these is the legal ability to post my property and receive inquiries from buyers' agents who depend daily on the local MLS (Multiple Listing Service). Listing property on the MLS is almost mandatory in attracting the quality buyer, the one who knows what he needs and is ready to address those needs, in greater numbers than any other online or old or new media service available.

In seeking to save myself a substantial amount of money in these cash-strapped times, I must seek out a relatively new phenomenon in real estate law called Limited service agency.

Here is an addition made to the original law which took effect on 1 July, 2007.

“Limited service representative” means a licensee who acts for or represents a client with respect to real property containing from one to four residential units, pursuant to a brokerage agreement that provides that the limited service representative will not provide one or more of the duties set forth in subdivision A 2 of §§ 54.1-2131, 54.1-2132, 54.1-2133, and 54.1-2134, inclusive. A limited service representative shall have the obligations set out in the brokerage agreement, except that a limited service representative shall provide the client, at the time of entering the brokerage agreement, copies of any and all disclosures required by federal or state law, or local disclosures expressly authorized by state law, and shall disclose to the client the following in writing: (i) the rights and obligations of the client under the Virginia Residential Property Disclosure Act (§ 55-517 et seq.); (ii) if the client is selling a condominium, the rights and obligations of the client to deliver to the purchasers, or to receive as purchaser, the condominium resale certificate required by § 55-79.97; and (iii) if the client is selling a property subject to the Property Owners’ Association Act (§ 55-508 et seq.), the rights and obligations of the client to deliver to the purchasers, or to receive as purchaser, the association disclosure packet required by § 55-512. A limited service representative may act as the agent or representative of the client only by so providing in writing in the brokerage agreement. If the brokerage agreement does not so state, the limited service representative shall be deemed as acting as an independent contractor of the client.

Over the next few days my task will be to find someone who actually knows of this form of agency, and is willing to provide me the small service of posting my information on the MRIS (the local MLS) for a small fee. There are those agents with a bit more seasoning than I have who speculate that limited service agency will actually become rather popular once the public and the industry begin to detect its advantages over traditional agency.