43-23-12.1. Real estate brokerage firm - Duties required

43-23-12.1. Real estate brokerage firm - Duties required 1. A real estate brokerage firm and the real estate brokerage firm's licensees, which provide services through a written agency agreement for a client, are bound to that client by the duties of loyalty, obedience, disclosure, confidentiality, reasonable care, diligence, and accounting, subject to the provisions of this chapter and subject to any rules adopted under this chapter. The agency relationship, which must be established through a written agency agreement, may be a seller agency, a buyer agency, a dual agency, an appointed agency, a subagency, or another form of agency relationship. If a different relationship, including a nonagency relationship with a customer, between the real estate brokerage firm and the person for which the real estate brokerage firm performs the services is intended, the relationship must be disclosed in writing pursuant to rules adopted by the board. 2. If a buyer, prospective buyer, or seller is not represented by a real estate brokerage firm in the real property transaction, that buyer or seller remains a customer, and, as to that customer, the real estate brokerage firm and the real estate brokerage firm's licensees are nonagents that owe the following legal duties: to perform customary acts typically performed by real estate licensees in assisting a transaction to the transaction's closing or conclusion if these acts are to assist the customer for which the services are directly provided; to perform these acts with honesty and good faith; and to disclose to the customer any adverse material facts actually known by the licensee which pertain to the title of the real property, the physical condition of the real property, and defects in the real property. These limited duties are subordinate to any duties the real estate brokerage firm and the real estate brokerage firm's licensees owe to a client in the same transaction. 3. Unless otherwise agreed in writing, a real estate brokerage firm and the real estate brokerage firm's licensees are not obligated to a client, to a customer, or to any other person to discover defects in any real property, to verify the ownership of any real property, or to independently verify the accuracy or completeness of any statement or representation made by any person other than the real estate brokerage firm and the real estate brokerage firm's licensees involved in the transaction under question. 4. Unless the licensee is directly involved in a transaction regarding the affected real property, this section does not result in imputing knowledge, regarding the affected real property, of one licensee within a real estate brokerage firm to another licensee within the same real estate brokerage firm or in imposing a duty upon a licensee within a real estate brokerage firm to disclose facts that are known by that licensee regarding the affected real property to another licensee within the same real estate brokerage firm. 5. If a real estate brokerage firm and the real estate brokerage firm's licensees represent two or more buyers or lessees as clients that desire to make an offer for the purchase or lease of the same real property, the real estate brokerage firm and the real estate brokerage firm's licensees do not breach any duty by assisting such clients with multiple offers, even though the interests of such clients are competing, and are not required to disclose the existence of competing offers, except as otherwise set forth under this subsection. The real estate brokerage firm and the real estate brokerage firm's licensees shall continue to honor agency duties to such clients, except as limited under this subsection. However, if an individual licensee has a written agency agreement with two or more buyers that desire to make an offer for the purchase or lease of the same real property, that licensee shall disclose to those competing buyer clients the fact that a competing written offer has been submitted by another buyer client of that licensee. 6. If a real estate brokerage firm and the real estate brokerage firm's licensees represent two or more sellers or lessors as clients that desire to offer competing real property for sale or lease, the real estate brokerage firm and the real estate brokerage firm's licensees do not breach any duty to such clients by performing such services, even though the interests of such clients are competing. In such event, the real estate brokerage firm and the real estate brokerage firm's licensees shall continue to honor agency duties to such clients, except as limited under this subsection.