If you work in the property industry and you source or come into contact with property sourcers your inbox will have been graced by many an email entitled ‘NDA for you to sign’ Ahh the joys of sourcing property. Whilst many training companies are obsessed with these ‘to protect you’ the longer I have been in the industry the more pointless it all seems.
Here is why…
So, what is the intended purpose of an NDA (Non-disclosure Agreement)?
Simply put it is a confidentiality agreement usually between two parties that states certain material or knowledge shall remain secret or confidential between the two parties only. It may sometimes outline specific pieces of information that is to remain ‘secret’ and outline what is essentially a legal contract for the do’s and don’ts of selling ‘said’ property and the none disclosure of certain pieces of information to third parties.
This is absolutely fine and logical especially when sourcing property and your worried about some rogue third party agent going behind your back to sell the deal to their investor and cutting you out.
Wrong. Well in my opinion if you as a fully legal and compliant property sourcer have carried out all the necessary work such as; securing the property direct to vendor, making sure a property is off market (if it was on the market), carrying out any legal checks along the way and using the correct contracts in the process.
If you have done all this then you have the following:
- You have secured the property direct to the vendor with a legal contract
- You have the property exclusively to sell
- You are safe from anyone else’s under-hand tactics as you have security (see above)
So, in this instance, what is the point of an NDA? There isn’t one! So stop spamming my inbox with NDA’s.
We get sent lots of ‘deals’ from property sourcers in the UK and they all do the exact same thing… they tease a little information on a deal, followed up by ‘oh you will have to sign my NDA before I email you the details.’
I do one of two things… I either ignore and delete the email, Or I tell them how pointless it all is (if I have time). The surprising thing is when I have done this, 90% of people send over the details regardless and comment on how they hate NDA’s too!
The property sourcing industry needs to be regulated and rightly so. There are too many people that are either unaware of legal obligations when sourcing or they just don’t care because they have gotten away with it for so long. Both instances are completely unacceptable. We have worked with Tina Walsh of Property Sourcing Compliance and we are happy to be at the forefront of helping change the sourcing industry.
So please, please, please, no more bloody NDA’s in my inbox! Just source it properly, secure your deals with the vendor use the correct contracts and lets do business the right way.
If you want to know how you can become part of the Sourced Network as a property sourcer, then download our Franchise Prospectus.
