Question 1

Do you have to hand every Massachusetts open house visitor the disclosure form?

Accepted Answer

No, because Massachusetts writes an open house exception directly into its disclosure rule. What replaces handing out the form is a posting duty: conspicuously post your relationship, or include it with the other written materials on the table, so everyone walking through understands you are there for the seller. The same Board course material sets the general trigger for the Mandatory Licensee-Consumer Relationship Disclosure as all three of a first personal meeting, to discuss a specific property, with a prospective buyer or seller, and it notes the broker must retain the form for three years. Put the line on your sign-in screen as well as on a sign by the door, since the screen is the one thing every visitor actually reads.

Question 2

Can you call a Massachusetts open house visitor afterwards?

Accepted Answer

Massachusetts runs its own no sales solicitation calls listing, and chapter 159C bars an unsolicited telephonic sales call to a number on the current quarterly listing, outside 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. local time where that person is, or by recorded message device. The word carrying the weight is unsolicited, which section 1 of the same chapter defines by exception: a call made in response to an express written or verbal request of the consumer is not one. So a plain permission line next to the phone field on your sign-in form is what keeps the evening follow-up out of the restricted category, and the saved timestamp is the record you would fall back on. Without that permission, screen against the state listing before you dial and never call after 8 p.m.

Question 3

Does a Massachusetts open house visitor have to sign a buyer agreement?

Accepted Answer

The thing to watch in Massachusetts is not the paperwork, it is the conversation. The Board's buyer agency course material lists how an agency relationship gets established, and alongside a written buyer contract and a verbal contract it includes an implied relationship on the basis of actions and conversations. An open house produces exactly that: a long talk in which you answer a stranger's questions about what they can afford and what to offer. Because you are already the seller's agent, drifting into advising a visitor that way is how a host backs into undisclosed dual agency, which the same page calls illegal in Massachusetts. Decide in advance where your answers stop, and get the relationship in writing before you start working for anyone.

Question 4

What do you owe a visitor whose contact details you collected?

Accepted Answer

Massachusetts sets a destruction standard for records, and whether it reaches your sign-in list turns on a defined term. Chapter 93I defines personal information narrowly in section 1 as a resident's name together with a Social Security number, a driver's license or Massachusetts ID number, a financial account or card number, or a biometric indicator, so an ordinary name, phone and email list usually sits outside it. The moment you take a photo of a driver's license or a Massachusetts ID card, you are inside it, and then paper has to be redacted, burned, pulverized or shredded and digital media destroyed or erased so it cannot practicably be reconstructed. The same section backs that with a civil fine of up to $100 per data subject affected. Delete old lead lists rather than binning one intact at the end of the season.

Open house rules for Massachusetts agents

Do you have to hand every Massachusetts open house visitor the disclosure form?

Can you call a Massachusetts open house visitor afterwards?

Does a Massachusetts open house visitor have to sign a buyer agreement?

What do you owe a visitor whose contact details you collected?

How this page is put together

Open house rules where you also work

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