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Comment by bartvk | Hacker News Reader

A few hundred pages? Here in The Netherlands, the contract is maybe five pages, then a list of things that will stay in the house and finally a list of Q&A with the current owner about things like the wiring, any easements, etc. It's usually a model contract too, so you can compare your copy to the published model contract.

What's in these "few hundred pages"?

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Purchase terms, disclosures about the property, disclosures about the area it's in, financing terms, HOA bylaws, HOA financing, and lots more HOA stuff, title information, tax information... basically as much fun as you can have. And they keep adding more legally required disclosures, I think far past the point of diminishing returns as far as making anyone actually informed.

Denmark - several documents probably around 40-50 pages in my case.

What comprises the house - garden etc. size of different parts.

the house is shared with a neighbor, requirements for the sharing of house with neighbor.

what parts of the shared areas are yours (a walk in closet downstairs and some weird crawl space in a wall)

known problems with house that the seller has told me of.

all the things you named.

An evaluation of the house condition for insurance purposes.

on edit: formatting

My flats contract takes a full binder, the stack is easily 10cm. This is certainly an extreme case since it’s an old building in a compound with pretty complex history, but that happens.

In California the seller discloses as much as possible to the buyer - i) house inspection and pest inspection, ii) disclosures from the county, state, utilities district, iii) advisories of risk of wildfire, lead paint, natural hazards, earthquake; and much more. This is so that the buyer has as little possible recourse to sue in the future for losses on the property. This behavior also enables faster real estate deals b/c the buyer is more willing to offer without contingencies.

I don't see how you figure. You get the disclosures long after you make your offer (although you do have a contingency if you don't like what you see, I think). And the mandatory disclosure system opens you up to more risk of lawsuit, since if you fail to disclose something you, in the view of the legal system, reasonably should have known, that's grounds for a suit (compared to MA, where I used to live, where you're free not to make a disclosure at all so you can't be said to have omitted anything). Also, dealing with the title company and all that definitely seemed slower than the system I previously experienced where both sides had lawyers to hash out small details.

If you are working with a real estate agent they can pull the disclosures before you make the offer. I am not sure how it works for no agent sales.

Also the disclosures have copious language to the effect of "To the best of sellers' knowledge" and "Buyer agrees to do their own research". I think this is supposed to indemnify the seller.

I was working with an agent and I barely was able to get those disclosures before closing because of the sluggishness of the seller's chosen title company. For the disclosures, you're clear if you didn't know about it, but the issue of whether you reasonably should have known about an issue remains. Just saying to the best of my knowledge doesn't clear you on that. And figuring out what you reasonably should have known can be a protracted legal argument.

Just as an example, imagine you buy a house from me that turns out to have foundation issues. Imagine I hadn't disclosed them, but I had actually filled in and painted over a number of cracks in the wall. That could possibly be construed as an effort to cover up the problem and deceive. But maybe I just thought I was making it look nice.

In short, mandatory disclosures protect the buyer, not the seller. The seller gains nothing.

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