Who represents me if I buy land without a buyer's agent?
No one. In Virginia a buyer with no brokerage relationship, the relationship a written brokerage agreement creates, is presumed a customer of the licensee, not a client. The seller's licensee must still treat that buyer honestly and disclose in writing the material adverse facts about the property's physical condition that the licensee actually knows. A buyer's own licensee enters a brokerage agreement before showing property and promotes the buyer's interests.
Client and customer: where the Code puts a buyer who has signed nothing
Virginia's brokerage relationship statute has two words for the people a licensee works with in a sale. A client has entered into a brokerage relationship with a licensee. A customer has not, but is someone for whom a licensee performs ministerial acts, the routine tasks that involve no discretion and none of the licensee's own judgment.
The statute then settles which word applies when nobody has said. Va. Code 54.1-2130 puts it as a presumption:
Unless a licensee enters into a brokerage relationship with such person, it shall be presumed that such person is a customer of the licensee rather than a client.
Va. Code 54.1-2130
The door into the first word is paper. Va. Code 54.1-2137 requires the brokerage agreement to come before a licensee provides brokerage services to a prospective client, except where that article provides otherwise. What that written brokerage agreement is, by definition, is on the glossary page for brokerage agreement. A buyer who drives out to a tract, calls the number on the sign and never signs anything has not crossed that door. The licensee on the other end of the phone may be helpful, but the Code presumes that buyer a customer.
What the seller's licensee still owes a buyer who is only a customer
Being a customer is not the same as being owed nothing. The seller's licensee works for the seller, and the Code still attaches duties that run to every prospective buyer.
Va. Code 54.1-2131 opens that list plainly:
Licensees shall treat all prospective buyers honestly and shall not knowingly give them false information. A licensee engaged by a seller shall disclose to prospective buyers all material adverse facts pertaining to the physical condition of the property that are actually known by the licensee.
Va. Code 54.1-2131
The same section says that disclosure is made in writing. It also draws a boundary around the phrase that matters. "Physical condition of the property" means the land and its improvements, and does not refer to matters outside the land's boundaries or relating to adjacent properties, to governmental land use regulations, or to highways or public streets. The zoning question, the neighbor's ground and the road plans sit outside that particular duty, which is why a buyer reads them separately. What a buyer reads on a parcel before committing, from access to zoning, is laid out in reading land before a price. What the seller personally has to disclose is a separate question, with its own page: whether a seller has to disclose problems with land.
The seller's licensee can show that buyer the property without any agreement with the buyer, when the showing is done under the seller's brokerage agreement, and ministerial acts for a buyer do not form a brokerage relationship. In a residential transaction, a licensee who has a substantive discussion about a specific property with an unrepresented buyer must disclose whom the licensee represents. Under 18VAC135-20-220 that disclosure is in writing at the earliest practical time, and no later than when specific real estate assistance is first provided.
The unrepresented buyer and the represented buyer, duty by duty
Laid next to each other, the two positions differ less in courtesy than in whose interests the licensee is bound to promote.
| Question | Buyer with no brokerage agreement | Buyer with their own licensee |
|---|---|---|
| Who the licensee works for | The seller; the buyer is presumed a customer | The buyer, as a client |
| Paper before a showing | None needed when the seller's licensee shows under the seller's agreement | A brokerage agreement before the licensee shows property |
| What the licensee seeks | A sale at the price and terms in the seller's brokerage agreement, or others acceptable to the seller | Property of a type, and at a price and terms, acceptable to the buyer |
| Disclosure to the buyer | Material adverse physical-condition facts actually known, in writing; honesty throughout | Material facts about the property or the transaction that the licensee actually knows |
| Whose interests are promoted | The seller's | The buyer's |
The right-hand column is buyer agency, and the full list of what a buyer's licensee owes, with its limits, is on the page for buyer agency. In a residential transaction that column can also be narrowed on paper: a limited service agent works under a written agreement that leaves out one or more of the duties the Code lists under promoting the client's interests.
Two questions that follow naturally belong elsewhere. Who pays a buyer's licensee, and how much, are terms of the written agreement, covered under what a Virginia brokerage agreement has to include. And one licensee acting for both seller and buyer in the same sale needs written consent after written disclosure in a residential transaction, which is dual agency.
Bare land and the Code's line between residential and commercial real estate
Several of the rules above carry the word residential, and on a land purchase that word needs checking before it is relied on.
For the brokerage relationship article, Va. Code 54.1-2130 defines residential real estate as real property containing one to four residential dwelling units, and the sale of lots containing one to four residential dwelling units. It defines commercial real estate as any real estate other than property with one to four residential units or real estate classified for assessment purposes under Va. Code 58.1-3230, the section that sets the special classifications of real estate. Read on the words alone, a vacant tract enrolled in a special assessment classification may fit neither definition.
Which side of that line a particular tract falls on is not something a page can decide. The supervising broker of the firm involved, or an attorney, answers it for a given sale. Until then, the written disclosure of whom a licensee represents, the standard and limited service agent categories, and the disclose-then-consent sequence for dual agency described above are residential rules, and a buyer of bare ground can ask plainly which rules the licensee is working under.
Buying a tract with no buyer's agent of your own?
Lowell is the listing agent on this office's current listings. Ask about one, and settle first whose side each licensee in the deal is on and what that means for you as a buyer. No cost, no obligation.
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Questions this raises
Does a listing agent have to tell an unrepresented buyer whom they represent?
In a residential transaction, yes. Va. Code 54.1-2138 and 18VAC135-20-220 require a licensee who has substantive discussions about a specific property with a buyer who is neither the licensee's client nor represented by another licensee to disclose whom the licensee represents. The regulation requires that in writing at the earliest practical time, and no later than when specific real estate assistance is first provided.
How is a buyer's own licensee's disclosure duty worded differently from the seller's licensee's?
Va. Code 54.1-2131 has a seller's licensee disclose to prospective buyers, in writing, the material adverse facts about the property's physical condition that the licensee actually knows, a phrase the section says does not refer to matters off the land or relating to adjacent properties, land use regulations, or highways and streets. Va. Code 54.1-2132 has a buyer's licensee disclose to the buyer material facts related to the property or concerning the transaction of which the licensee has actual knowledge.
Where this page's facts come from
Every rule, office and figure above traces to one of these. Rules change; check the office before you act on one.
- Va. Code 54.1-2130, definitions for brokerage relationships (including the reference to 58.1-3230) Virginia General Assembly
- Va. Code 54.1-2131, licensees engaged by sellers Virginia General Assembly
- Va. Code 54.1-2132, licensees engaged by buyers Virginia General Assembly
- Va. Code 54.1-2137, commencement of brokerage relationships and brokerage agreements Virginia General Assembly
- Va. Code 54.1-2138, disclosure of brokerage relationships Virginia General Assembly
- 18VAC135-20-220, disclosure of brokerage relationships Virginia Real Estate Board