The Paperwork You Need to Sell a House Without a Realtor

The Disclosure Form: The One Piece of Paperwork With Real Legal Risk

If you're selling without a realtor, the seller's disclosure is the one document where a mistake actually follows you after closing. In Florida, the duty comes from the state's highest court, not a form you can skip: Johnson v. Davis, 480 So. 2d 625 (Fla. 1985), held that a seller who knows a fact materially affecting the home's value, and that isn't readily observable to the buyer, has to disclose it in writing. That duty applies whether you sell through an agent, sell FSBO, or sell to a direct buyer like Cash Flow Deals. An agent doesn't create the duty and doesn't remove it either, but an agent has usually walked dozens of sellers through what actually counts as material. Selling on your own means you're deciding alone whether that roof stain, that old sinkhole repair, or that leaking pipe rises to "material and not readily observable." Get it wrong by over-disclosing and nothing happens. Get it wrong by staying quiet on something you knew, and you're the one a buyer's attorney calls after closing.

Two Federal Forms Apply No Matter What State You're In

Two pieces of paperwork aren't state-specific at all, and skipping either one is a federal compliance problem, not just a local one. If your house was built before 1978, the EPA's Real Estate Disclosure rule requires you to hand the buyer a signed lead-based paint disclosure, a copy of the pamphlet Protect Your Family From Lead In Your Home, and any records you have on lead paint in the house, before they're contractually bound to buy. Buyers get a 10-day window to test for lead unless they waive it, and you keep the signed disclosure on file for three years after closing. The second federal form only shows up if your buyer is financing the purchase: their lender has to deliver a Closing Disclosure, a five-page form spelling out final loan terms and closing costs, at least three business days before closing, under the CFPB's TILA-RESPA rule. An agent usually flags both of these automatically. Selling alone means you're the one checking your house's construction date against a federal rule and confirming your buyer's lender actually hit the three-day clock.

The Contract, the Deed, and the Payoff Statement: What Nobody's Chasing Down for You

Past the two legal-risk items, the rest of the pile is administrative, but somebody still has to assemble it, and without a realtor that somebody is you. You need a purchase agreement, usually a state-standard form, since drafting one from scratch or signing a buyer's version without your own read is how sellers give away protections they didn't know they had. You need your recorded deed, or a title company will pull one from the county if you can't find it. You need a current mortgage payoff statement, and it has to be recent, since interest accrues daily and an old payoff figure can short you or the lender at the closing table. If you're in an HOA or condo association, you need estoppel or governing documents, since a buyer's lender will want to see them before funding. And you need a survey if one exists, since a missing one can slow down title work that a listing agent's transaction coordinator would normally have started weeks earlier. None of this is complicated on its own. It's the volume, and the fact that no one but you is tracking the deadlines, that trips FSBO sellers up.

How Cash Flow Deals Removes This Pile Entirely

Cash Flow Deals is a Florida real estate investor that locks in a net price for a seller's house before repairs are scoped, using a novation-based, flat-fee process arranged through its licensed FL brokerage partner, Silver Door Realty - not a traditional listing, and not a brokerage itself.

That structure exists so the disclosure form, the two federal forms, and the deed-and-payoff paperwork all get reviewed by someone whose job is to catch a mistake before it becomes your liability, not after.

1. Cash Flow Deals reviews your house and locks a net price before any repairs get scoped.

2. Silver Door Realty, the licensed FL brokerage partner, prepares and reviews the disclosure, the required federal forms, and the closing paperwork with you before you sign anything.

3. You close on a date you pick, as soon as 10 business days out, with a real bank-financed buyer on the other end.

The one exception: if something structural surfaces that was not visible or disclosed before we signed - foundation issues, hidden moisture, old wiring, cast-iron drain failure - we re-cost it and bring the number back to you. You decide. You can walk away. We disclose what we know at offer time so this almost never happens.

If the paperwork is the part of selling alone that worries you most, the fastest way to find out what a locked number looks like is to ask Cash Flow Deals before you fill out a single form on your own.