Home sales require paperwork

Q. Is it true all real estate sales contracts have to be in writing? What if no broker is involved?

A. Yes, the transfer of real estate requires written contracts. In this case, oral agreements aren't worth the paper they're written on. If, in front of 20 witnesses, a buyer were to say she is willing to pay $250,000 for your property, and even if she were to give you a good deposit check - and you were to take it - you still could not hold her to it.

A written contract supersedes any oral agreements. If she were to say you could take the pool table but then write in the contract that you would leave it, that's it - you're out one pool table.

And if you want to sell, can you draw up the contract yourself? Yes, and you could perform your own brain surgery, too. In either case, it'd be fine unless you happen to make an amateurish mistake.

No use copying someone else's contract. Yours will differ according to the needs of the parties, local custom and state law. Brokers and lawyers must take courses, pass exams and gain experience before they're even allowed to fill out printed forms. Agree with the buyer on your own if you like, but to actually write the contract, hire professional help.

Q. Today, I was reading your column about the woman who asked if she should put her child's name on their deed. In addition to the reasons you listed as why she shouldn't, I'd like to add another one: They could lose their house.

Years ago, my sister was working for a bankruptcy lawyer. The lawyer had a client who filed for bankruptcy. At some point in the past, the client's parents had added him to the deed to their house. When the courts looked into his finances and assets, as they do whenever anyone files, they found he was part owner of his parents' house and ordered him to sell the house and use his profits to pay down his debts. He didn't want to do that to his parents, so he withdrew his filing.

Also, sometimes your kids aren't the nicest people and you really don't realize that until it's too late.

I know of someone, many years ago, who convinced his mother to give him her fully paid-off house. He told her he would take care of her. Instead, he sold the house and threw her out on the street. I never heard what finally happened to that poor woman. The last I heard was that another one of her children was trying to take the brother to court to help the mom. However, there might not have been anything anyone could do because the mother had given the child her home.

A. The reader question you mentioned brought your detailed comment and another one, much shorter but to the point. Here's that note:

Edith: Daughter-in-law could sell the property out from under the mother and force an eviction. None of that would benefit the mother. You gave good advice. No reply necessary. Just wanted to say, "Good job."

Q. My in-laws are going to a nursing home. My wife and I will be selling their house to fund the move to the nursing home. According to several Realtors, the house and property are worth about $40,000 less than what they originally paid for it. Is there any tax benefit to selling the property at a loss?

A. Nope, there's no income tax deduction when a private home is sold at a loss. No different from if, for instance, you were to sell your in-laws' used automobile.

By the way, that all-too-successful word "Realtor" is trademarked and supposed to be capitalized. In fact, it is properly spelled with all capitals: REALTOR. Technically, it applies only to members of a private organization, the National Association of Realtors. It has nothing to do with individual states' licensing of real estate brokers or salespeople.

The word keeps slipping into the language, though, perhaps because of its similarity to "doctor" or "lawyer." Or because there's just a need for it.

Unless the association remains alert and protests, it is in danger of losing exclusive use of the word. That happened with "aspirin," a term that originally belonged to Bayer until it became too successful and was widely used for any company's acetylsalicylic acid.

• Contact Edith Lank on www.askedith.com, or 240 Hemingway Drive, Rochester NY 14620.

© 2019, Creators Syndicate