Utah-Specific Agency, Disclosure, and Transaction Practices
Agency disclosure in Utah
Utah requires a licensee to disclose the type of agency relationship in writing at the outset of the relationship and before the client signs anything. A licensee may represent the seller, the buyer, both as a limited agent, or neither. Limited (dual) agency requires the informed written consent of both parties, and the licensee then acts as a neutral facilitator: no advocacy and no sharing of one party's confidential information with the other, but complete honesty and disclosure of material facts to both.
Transaction practices
Most Utah residential sales use the statewide Real Estate Purchase Contract (REPC), which allocates duties through dated deadlines: earnest money deposit, seller's property condition disclosure, buyer's due diligence, financing and appraisal, and settlement. Read the definitions page, because in these forms days means calendar days, and a deadline landing on a weekend or legal holiday generally rolls to the next business day. Time is of the essence language makes those deadlines enforceable. The seller delivers a written property condition disclosure, the buyer performs due diligence and a final walk-through, and closing is settled through escrow with recorded documents and a Closing Disclosure.
Traps
- Confusing the due-diligence deadline with the financing deadline; each carries its own remedy.
- Assuming earnest money is nonrefundable; it is refundable when the contract says so and notice is timely.
- Believing a seller's disclosure replaces the buyer's own inspection obligation.
- Describing limited agency as representing nobody; both parties remain clients.
Worked example. Acceptance occurs on a Friday with a 10-day due-diligence deadline. Counting calendar days from Saturday, day 10 falls on the following Monday, so Monday is the deadline.