A broker may not market the sale or lease of residential real estate to a limited or exclusive group of prospective buyers or brokers, or any combination thereof, unless the real estate is concurrently marketed to the general public and all other brokers, except as reasonably necessary to protect the health or safety of the owner or occupant.
The Community Opportunity to Purchase Act or COPA, also known as Intro 902, would require owners of buildings with three or more residential units to notify the Department of Housing Preservation and Development and a list of qualified entities when their buildings will be listed for sale, giving these nonprofits a first right of refusal to purchase a residential property.
In the biggest case ever brought before the HCRA's discipline committee, Briarwood Development Group was accused of violating the province's code of ethics for home builders by coercing 142 buyers into paying more for pre-construction homes, for which they had already paid deposits and signed agreements, ultimately extracting more than $18 million. The counts against Briarwood were all dismissed or withdrawn last month, after the HCRA failed to prove its case and bring forward substantial evidence.
Real Estate Effective Oct. 15, waived inspections will be a thing of the past. For years, Massachusetts homebuyers in the state's hyper-competitive real estate market felt pressured to waive home inspections to make their offers more appealing. As of Oct. 15, new state regulations ban homeowners and realtors from selling a property on the condition that they waive the inspection and prohibit buyers from offering to waive the inspection to get ahead of the competition.