Iowa Real Estate Broker Exam — All Questions

Iowa requires the seller of most residential property (one to four units) to give the buyer a:

• a.Copy of the seller's original purchase contract and deed
• b.Waiver of all inspection rights
• c.Guarantee that the home has no defects
• d.Written property condition disclosure statement✓

Iowa Code chapter 558A applies to a transfer of real estate that "includes at least one but not more than four dwelling units," and section 558A.2(1) requires a written disclosure statement to be delivered to the prospective buyer before the transferor makes a written offer or accepts a written offer. It is a statement of what the seller knows, made in good faith under section 558A.3(1), so a guarantee that the home has no defects describes something the statute never asks a seller to give - the buyer's own acknowledgment in the commission's sample form says the statement is not a warranty and not a substitute for an inspection. A waiver of inspection rights is the reverse of a disclosure, withholding information rather than supplying it. The seller's old purchase contract and deed are title documents rather than condition disclosures. Rule 481-2014.1(2) requires the listing licensee to obtain the completed, signed and dated disclosure at the time the listing is taken, and to keep it for five years if the transaction closes.

An Iowa seller's disclosure statement is delivered late, by mail, after the buyer's offer was accepted. The buyer may:

• a.Revoke the acceptance without liability within five days of that delivery✓
• b.Demand that the seller repair every condition named in the statement
• c.Rescind the contract without liability at any time before the closing date
• d.Sue the listing broker for the full amount of the earnest money deposit

Section 558A.2(2) provides that "if the disclosure statement is not timely delivered, the transferee may withdraw the offer or revoke the acceptance without liability, within three days following personal delivery of the statement or five days following electronic delivery or delivery by mail." The remedy is therefore a short, dated window keyed to how the late statement arrived, not an open-ended right to rescind up to closing. Rule 481-2014.1(3) requires a licensee representing a buyer to notify the buyer of the seller's obligation and of this right, and rule 481-2013.4 then requires the earnest money to be returned promptly to the buyer without needing the seller's consent. Chapter 558A is a disclosure statute rather than a repair statute, so it creates no duty to fix what is disclosed. Damages are limited by section 558A.6 to the buyer's actual damages, and a broker or salesperson is not liable for an error or omission unless the person had actual knowledge of it or failed to exercise ordinary care in obtaining the information.

Under Iowa Code section 558.69, a groundwater hazard statement is:

• a.Required for commercial parcels over one acre and for floodplain property only
• b.Submitted to the county recorder with the declaration of value for the transfer✓
• c.Filed with the department of natural resources by the buyer after the closing
• d.Given to the buyer at the first showing of any property served by a private well

Section 558.69(1) provides that "with each declaration of value submitted to the county recorder under chapter 428A, except as specified in subsection 8, there shall be submitted a groundwater hazard statement" disclosing known private burial sites, wells, potentially hazardous solid waste disposal sites, underground storage tanks, hazardous waste, and private sewage disposal systems. It belongs to the recording step, not to a showing, and it is signed by at least one seller or the seller's agent, with the seller giving the buyer a copy. The buyer files nothing: under section 558.69(6) it is the county recorder who transmits the statements to the department of natural resources. The requirement attaches to the transfer itself rather than to acreage, use, or flood zone. Since 2022 Iowa Acts ch. 1028, if none of the listed conditions is present no statement is submitted at all; instead the deed must carry on its first page the exemption statement quoted in section 558.69(8)"a", and if neither the statement nor that language appears the recorder must refuse to record.