Question 1

Do you have to tell visitors you represent the seller?

Accepted Answer

At your own listing's open house you are the seller's agent under the Kansas brokerage relationships act, and a visitor who has not signed anything with you is a customer rather than a client. Kansas requires a licensee to furnish a prospective buyer or seller with the commission's Real Estate Brokerage Relationships brochure at the first practical opportunity, so keep copies at the sign-in table and hand one over rather than waiting for someone to ask. The act does not require the brochure while the licensee is only performing ministerial acts, and it defines those acts to expressly include attending an open house and responding to questions about the property from a consumer. Ministerial acts are limited to what is informative in nature and does not rise to the level of active representation, so the exemption covers answering questions about the house and stops where active representation begins. However the door conversation goes, the disclosure of the brokerage relationship has to be included in any resulting contract for sale.

Question 2

Can you call a visitor after the open house?

Accepted Answer

Kansas puts its own telephone solicitation rules in the Consumer Protection Act, and they turn your follow-up call into a consent question. A call is only an unsolicited consumer telephone call, the kind the section restricts, if it was not made in response to an express request or with the express written agreement of the person called. So put a plain consent line on your sign-in form asking permission to call, because a visitor who agrees in writing puts the call outside that restriction. Without that agreement the call is unsolicited, and the section requires you to identify yourself, identify the business you are soliciting for, identify the purpose of the call immediately upon making contact, and promptly discontinue the solicitation if the person gives a negative response at any point in the call. Any violation of the section is an unconscionable act or practice under the Kansas consumer protection act.

Question 3

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

Accepted Answer

Kansas license law does not make a signed buyer agreement the price of walking through your open house. The statutory deadline falls later than the tour: to establish an agency relationship with a buyer, the written agency agreement has to be signed no later than the signing of an offer to purchase or lease. Until one exists you are not that visitor's agent, because Kansas treats a broker as a transaction broker unless an agency relationship has been established under that section or the broker is working with the buyer as a subagent of the seller. So showing an open house visitor through the home does not by itself make you their agent, but if you intend to represent them, get the written agreement done before they write an offer. Your MLS or REALTOR association can impose an earlier deadline than the statute does, so check its rules alongside the license law.

Question 4

How long do you have to keep the sign-in sheet?

Accepted Answer

Treat your open house sign-in list as a brokerage record rather than your personal contact list. Kansas requires each broker to retain, for at least three years, in the broker's paper or digital files a copy of all records relating to the broker's real estate business, and the list of examples that follows is written as non-exhaustive. In practice that means the sign-in data should live somewhere your supervising broker can actually reach for that long, not only in your own phone. Collect only the details you genuinely need in order to follow up, and dispose of anything carrying a visitor's contact details securely once you no longer need it.

Open house rules for Kansas agents

Do you have to tell visitors you represent the seller?

Can you call a visitor after the open house?

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

How long do you have to keep 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