Question 1

When do you have to hand over the agency disclosure form?

Accepted Answer

Alabama requires a licensee to give a consumer a written disclosure form, for signature, describing the types of brokerage services available, as soon as reasonably possible and before you pass any confidential information on to anyone else. The statute also puts an outside deadline on it: the disclosure has to happen at least before you provide any brokerage service. Hosting the open house by itself does not start that clock, because the statute expressly carves out a seller's agent conducting an open house as to prospective buyers. Showing a property to a prospective buyer is named in the very same sentence as something that does count. So keep the state disclosure form at the door and hand it over before you shift from hosting the event to working with someone as a buyer.

Question 2

Can you call a visitor after the open house?

Accepted Answer

Alabama has its own do not call rule in the statute books, on top of the federal rules. It says no person or entity may make a telephone solicitation to the telephone line of any Alabama residential subscriber who has given the state commission notice that they object to receiving them. The prohibition turns on that registered objection, not on how you came by the number, so a phone number a visitor wrote on your sign in sheet is not a cleared number just because they handed it to you. Check it against the Do Not Call registry before you dial a call meant to pitch your services or another listing.

Question 3

Do you need a signed buyer agreement before showing a visitor around?

Accepted Answer

No, and in Alabama you may not make one the price of admission. The statute says a consumer or customer may not be required to enter into a written brokerage agreement in order for a licensee to show them a property, so an open house visitor can walk through on the sign in alone. What does require a written brokerage agreement is going to work for that buyer for compensation. Alabama requires one before a licensee submits an offer on a property on behalf of a consumer, customer or client for compensation, and before listing a property for sale for them. Treat the signed agreement as the gate on writing the offer, not the gate on your front door.

Question 4

What can you do with what a visitor writes on the sign-in sheet?

Accepted Answer

Treat the sheet as confidential rather than as a list you can pass around. Alabama's list of obligations for licensees includes keeping confidential any information given to you in confidence, and any information you obtain that you know a reasonable individual would want kept confidential. What a visitor writes at the door is that kind of information: who they are, how to reach them, what they can spend, that they have a house to sell first. The statute allows only four ways out of that duty, and the practical one is authorization from the party in writing, so get written permission before you hand visitor details to a lender, a vendor or a co-hosting agent. Keep the sheet off the counter too, so the next visitor cannot read the last one.

Open house rules for Alabama agents

When do you have to hand over the agency disclosure form?

Can you call a visitor after the open house?

Do you need a signed buyer agreement before showing a visitor around?

What can you do with what a visitor writes on the sign-in sheet?

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Open house rules where you also work

Your disclosure text, on the screen, at every open house