Realtors are fighting the idea of open bids? Agents prefer no rules:
Ontario real estate agents are lobbying the province against the mandatory disclosure of offers among competing home buyers in transactions involving multiple bids.
The Ontario Real Estate Association (OREA) sent a bulletin to its 78,000 members this week urging them to contact their MPPs to oppose the compulsory sharing of offer prices and conditions among competing buyers. That’s something the province has said it is considering as part of its planned update to the 2002 Real Estate Business Brokers Act (REBBA).
“Buyers and sellers should have the choice of using an open, transparent process,” said the OREA email.
It says that sharing information about competing bids could lead to the disclosure of personal financial information to any interested parties.
“The government should not force consumers to gamble their life savings in an experimental, mandated open offer process,” said the OREA email signed by association president Karen Cox.
“Hard working realtors like you would face increased red tape,” it warned.
Under the current rules, a real estate agent can only share the details of offers with the property seller.
But consumers should have a choice if all the buyers and the seller agree, said OREA CEO Tim Hudak.
Making the disclosure of offers mandatory “would be a radical change in the real estate market that does not exist anywhere else in North America,” he said.
“This would invoke a brand new process for every real estate transaction where brokers would have to distribute offers to all the other buyers,” said Hudak and that means sharing prices, deposit and closing information, right down to who gets the fridge.
The buyers’ addresses would be included in each of the offer documents, as well as conditions around the need to sell another home or the amount of cash that buyer has on hand for a deposit.
Some sellers would agree to share offer information based on their ideas of fairness for buyers, said Hudak. But all sellers should seek the advice of their realtor, he added.
At least one Toronto agent says his advice would depend on whether he was representing a buyer or seller.
“If I were representing my seller I’d say, ‘no.’ Unless I was mandated to do it, I wouldn’t do it. It’s our job to protect our clients,” said Royal LePage’s Desmond Brown. “If I had a buyer I would want to know as much information as possible.”
Among its 28 recommendations for modernizing the real estate act, OREA is proposing that the government eliminate bully bids — offers that pre-empt the time the seller has set to look at bids on their home. It is also recommends the elimination of escalation clauses, offers that specify the buyer will exceed the best bid by a certain amount.
The Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB) said it understands, “the fairness angle,” of disclosing competing offer details. “But this will also be a tricky area for the government to attempt to legislate,” said a statement attributed to board CEO John DiMichele.
“Disclosing bids puts realtors in conflict with their seller clients,” he said.
In regard to bully bids, the government would need to either require sellers to look at all offers as they come in or not accept any until a certain date.
“We prefer less government intervention in the marketplace,” said the statement.
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From the accountant:
April 15, tax filing day, has come and gone for the 2018 tax year—and many taxpayers are confused or angered by a smaller-than-expected refund (or, even worse, a surprise balance due!).
These taxpayers are rightfully confused—many rightfully ask:
If the new Tax Cuts & Jobs Act was a tax cut, then why am I not getting a bigger refund than ever?
The problem is likely an issue with your withholding—while most taxpayers did pay less tax in 2018 than they did in 2017, the Department of the Treasury automatically adjusted withholding charts to withhold less tax from each taxpayer’s paycheck.
Many taxpayers did not account for this decrease in prepayments made throughout the year, and in some cases, it caused some very unwelcome surprises. This is especially true for those taxpayers who may not have taken certain other tax changes (limitations to itemized deductions, e.g.) into account as well.
The Bad News: 2019 Could Be Even Worse!
This is true because while the Treasury Department did not institute the withholding changes until part of the way through 2018 (meaning that taxpayers paid a higher rate of withholding for part of 2018), the new withholding rate imposed in 2018 will be in effect for a full year.
If this sounds like your situation in 2018, you should strongly consider adjusting your withholding immediately. We have already completed the First Quarter (Q1) of the calendar year, and some employers and payroll servicers take multiple pay periods to update withholding.
Don’t earn wages? Have other nonwage income?
The advice above, relating to wage withholding, also applies to withholding on pensions and bonuses, because the Department of the Treasury dropped the withholding rate for pensions and bonuses in the same way it did for wages.
Many taxpayers did not properly account for these adjustments to the various withholding rates in 2018. These changes will be applied to the full year in 2019, so it is essential to make any adjustments now, to avoid a nasty surprise in April 2020!
Any mention of surprise tax refunds or due is incomplete without a discussion of SALT. And the increased standard deduction. The increased deduction help the middle class helped many who would have been affected by SALT.
Income taxes are by definition unfair and unequal. Any changes can only influence how unfair and unequal.