What Do You Do When You Are Buying or Selling a Home in Naples Florida When a Hurricane is Coming?

We get questions all the time about how weather can affect a real estate transaction in Southwest Florida, and more specifically, when you are buying or selling a home in Naples or Southwest Florida, What çan You Do To Make Sure That You, Your Money, and Your Home Are Protected in the event of a hurricane?.

 

We Have All Seen It…The Daunting Pictures of The cone of Uncertainty usually with a spinning hurricane symbol, and The Spaghetti Models going everywhere….. Nobody Really Knows Where It Will Go, or What It Will Look Like When It Gets There, in fact Just This Week , They Forecasted 2 hurricanes in the gulf of Mexico at The Same Time!! They’ve been tracking hurricanes since 1900, and there is no record of that ever happening before!

 

Well, Not even The Experts know Where The Storms Are Truly going, Whether You are Buying or Selling a home, a condo, or a townhome ,When a Hurricane Comes to Town, We Have Your Back, We Know How to Protect, You, Your Money, and Your Home! 

 

On of the many great things about listing our home for sale with Janet Berry’s Luxury Home Team, is the incredible HD photos and HD videos that are included with our marketing package including incredible drone footage.  Not only do they really highlight your property, It just so happens, that insurance company’s love our photos and video when you are trying to prove how your home looked prior to a hurricane. We had a seller who was fighting with their insurance company, and we had incredibly detailed drone footage of their roof and it’s condition.

 

Let’s talk about buying a home in Southwest Florida for a minute.  I’m going to walk through the sales contract in detail to show you how you are protected even if you are under contract while a hurricane is on it’s way.

 

In September of 2017, Hurricane Irma Whipped Through Naples and Collier County, and at That Time our Standard Real Estate Contract Looked Quite a Bit Different than it does now. Before, During and after Irma, It Was actually Fairly Easy to Successfully Argue For buyers OR sellers, depending on who your were representing.

 

Thankfully, our contracts have tightened up quite a bit since then, and I am going to show you the actual sales contracts so you can see how to stay protected.

 

The most common question I get is, if we are under contract to buy or sell a home, and a hurricane damages the subject property prior to closing, who is responsible?  That used to be a difficult question to answer with several variables as part of the answer, but now the answer is quite simple….The Seller is responsible!. Starting on the bottom of Page 6 of the Standard Naples Area Board of Realtors Contract, Standard D.2.C is the Seller’s Maintenance Obligation.  The Seller is responsible for maintaining the Property in the same condition from the date everyone signs the contract until the closing date or date of possession whichever is earlier with the exception of normal wear and tear and any repairs or modifications the seller has made to the property as a result of a defective item found during an inspection.  The reference to date of possession means the buyer has moved in to the property prior to the closing date which I do not ever recommend, under any circumstances.

The Seller’s Maintenance Obligation Says “The Seller is responsible for maintaining the Property in the same condition from the date everyone signs the contract until the closing date or date of possession whichever is earlier with the exception of normal wear and tear and any repairs or modifications the seller has made to the property as a result of a defective item found during an inspection. 

The Full text of the article can be found at JanetBerry.com

If you have any questions about protecting yourself when buying or selling a home in Naples or Southwest Florida with or without a hurricane, feel free to text or call Janet Berry at 239-450-1892.  You can always search all homes for sale on Naples on the #1 Naples home search site at www.JanetBerry.com

 

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