There is an unknown tool that most buyers and sellers don't know about that helps with the real estate transaction. The C.L.U.E. report provides invaluable information about the prospective property to both buyers and sellers in different ways A C.L.U.E. (Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange) Report is a personal property report that provides a seven-year history of losses associated with an individual and his/her personal property from the insurance carrier of the property during that seven-year period. All claims payouts and information regarding the property is on the report. However, sellers don't need to worry because their personal information like social security numbers and dates of birth are omitted.
The original purpose of this report is so that all major insurance companies could report risk associated with the homeowner and the property itself similar to an individual's credit report or a car's report such as Carfax.
It can be used a couple different ways for both sellers and buyers. For sellers, it can help jog the memory to aid in filling out the seller's disclosure and it can help fill in the clues of what happened before the current seller purchased the property if the current owner has not lived in the property for the last seven years.
For buyers, it is critical to understanding the risk of the property and what has happened to the property. Risks could include flooding, lighting and any other routine risk as well as theft, etc.
Buyers must ask the seller to provide them with the C.L.U.E. report as only the owner can secure this document. A buyer should ask for this report during the negotiation round of the purchase.
Once the buyer has the document, it would be wise to closely compare the document to the seller's disclosure. If something is noted in the report that the seller has not added to the disclosure, ask the seller to revise the disclosure and to give you the details of what happened from their documents. This would also be a great time to ask for copies of the documents to compare to the report and give a headstart to the buyer's own house file.
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