The Disclosure Paperwork
On Monday morning I drove to Raleigh to sit for ninety minutes in a conference room at the North Carolina Real Estate Commission, across a laminate table from a very kind, very patient man named Gerald Poe, who is the person the state has, for reasons of its own, decided should answer my questions about what a seller is and is not required to disclose when the thing wrong with their property cannot be seen by a licensed inspector.
Gerald and I have a history. He does not believe in any of this. He has told me so, politely, three times over the years. He does, however, believe in statute, and he has read the statute more carefully than I ever will, and he enjoys the fact that I come to him with problems that are not in the statute, because it gives him an opportunity to reason by analogy, which Gerald Poe greatly enjoys.
"Marce," he said, pouring me a cup of coffee from the pod machine on the credenza. "Tell me what we're doing today."
"I have a bungalow in Beaufort. Private owner selling. The house has, for lack of a better word, a resident. Not attached to the owner. Attached to the property. Pre-war boarder. Non-threatening. I will be removing him in the next two weeks, and he will not be present at closing or thereafter."
"All right."
"My question is: under the Residential Property and Owners' Association Disclosure Statement, is the owner required to disclose the