Question 1

When do you hand a visitor the agency disclosure?

Accepted Answer

New Hampshire is one of the few states that writes the open house into the rule itself. Rea 701.01(a) requires a written brokerage relationship disclosure to a consumer at the time of the first business meeting, and Rea 701.01(d) then lifts the form requirement for people who attend an open house, but only if you disclose your brokerage relationship with the seller by sign, poster, pamphlet or other conspicuous means. So the sign is not a nicety in New Hampshire, it is the thing standing in for the form: post who you represent, and keep the Commission's Brokerage Relationship Disclosure Form at hand for the visitor whose conversation turns into a real first business meeting. The exemption is written around what is conspicuous, so put that notice where a visitor sees it without asking.

Question 2

Can you call or text a visitor afterwards?

Accepted Answer

New Hampshire bans telemarketing sales calls to anyone registered on the do-not-call registry, and it defines its way around the two situations that matter at an open house. A call made in response to an express written or verbal request of the customer is not a telemarketing sales call, and neither is one made in connection with an established business relationship. That is the practical reason to have the sign-in say what the number will be used for and to record that the visitor agreed, because the request is what you are relying on. The same chapter also pulls the FTC Telemarketing Sales Rule in as New Hampshire law for anyone who has to comply with it, so a visitor who leaves a number without asking to hear from you is a registry check before you dial.

Question 3

Does a visitor have to sign a buyer agreement first?

Accepted Answer

New Hampshire does not make a signed buyer agreement the price of walking through your open house, and showing someone the property does not quietly make them your client. The Practice Act treats showing property as a ministerial act and says performing ministerial acts for a buyer is not construed as forming an agency relationship with that buyer. Representing them is the separate step, and it runs on paper: a buyer agent's first listed duty is to perform the terms of the written brokerage agreement made with the buyer. So host the open house on your listing agreement, and put the buyer agreement in writing when you take that visitor on as a client.

Question 4

What do you owe a visitor whose details you keep?

Accepted Answer

New Hampshire's Practice Act treats the paperwork in a licensee's hands as something the Commission and the brokerage can reach. RSA 331-A:26 makes it disciplinable conduct for a licensee to fail, on demand, to produce any document or record in their possession for inspection and copying by the Commission, and for a principal broker to fail to preserve records relating to a real estate transaction for 3 years after it is consummated. A door list that turns into a transaction is the kind of record both of those rules reach, and one living only on a single agent's phone is hard for either of you to produce. Keep the list somewhere the principal broker can actually get to it and export it.

Open house rules for New Hampshire agents

When do you hand a visitor the agency disclosure?

Can you call or text a visitor afterwards?

Does a visitor have to sign a buyer agreement first?

What do you owe a visitor whose details you keep?

How this page is put together

Open house rules where you also work

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