The Buyer Who Told You Too Much

Conclusion: She is an unrepresented customer, and you may not simply slip into representing her.

Reasoning:

1. You have a written single-agent relationship with the seller. That relationship fixes your duty of loyalty: utmost good faith, obedience, full disclosure to the seller, and no advocacy for the buyer.
2. At first substantive contact - and certainly before she disclosed her finances - you were required to disclose in writing the nature of your relationship with her (a Commission-approved disclosure of relationship), so she understands she is not being represented and should not share confidential information.
3. To write her offer you would need either (a) the buyer to engage her own broker, or (b) a written conversion of your firm to transaction-broker for both parties, with written disclosure and the written consent of both the seller and the buyer. You cannot convert unilaterally, and you cannot serve as a single agent for both.
4. Even as a transaction-broker you would remain neutral - presenting the property, the contract, and objective information - with no advocacy and no disclosure of one party's confidential information to the other.
5. Her emailed financial details should be treated as confidential, not passed to the seller, and you should document in writing what you told her about representation.

Conclusion: Both numbers are confidential and neither may cross to the other side.

Reasoning:

1. The buyer's ceiling came to you in her capacity as a prospective purchaser; under your disclosure obligations and general fairness you cannot convert it into leverage for the seller. Telling the seller 'she'll go to $700,000' would be a misuse of information you obtained from an unrepresented person and would undercut the disclosure you gave her.
2. The seller's $615,000 figure is confidential client information. Revealing it to the buyer would breach your duty of loyalty and would be giving advice to a party you do not represent.
3. What you may do: present the offer and any counteroffer factually, explain market data available to both sides, and encourage the buyer to be represented or to price the property on her own analysis.
4. If she asks 'will the seller take $620,000?', the correct response is that you represent the seller and cannot advise her, that she should submit her best offer or engage her own broker, and that you will present whatever she writes.
5. Document the exchange; a later claim that you 'steered' the price will turn on your contemporaneous notes.

Conclusion: Do not render an opinion on the association's financial health for an unrepresented buyer.

Reasoning:

1. Assessing reserve adequacy is an analytical judgment about a third party's finances; giving it to a buyer you do not represent is advice, and it exposes both you and the seller if it is wrong.
2. Your affirmative duty runs the other way too: you must disclose adverse material facts you actually know about the property, including known HOA problems - a special assessment, litigation, or a depleted reserve. You cannot stay silent to protect the sale.
3. What you should do: deliver the HOA documents the seller is obligated to provide under the contract and Colorado disclosure requirements, point her to the association and to the HOA information resources referenced in the contract, and tell her to have the reserve study and budget reviewed by her own adviser.
4. Recommend she obtain the minutes, the current budget, any special-assessment notices, and the association's statement of litigation - those documents, not your characterization, are what she needs.
5. If the seller has never provided the reserve study, say so plainly rather than implying one was reviewed.