IF You Are the Realtor of the Buyer Involved in a FIRPTA Transaction, Is You Job Complete Once the Title Company Says They Have Sent the IRS a Check-

As a Realtor, your liability does not stop until the Seller has received the balance of the FIRPTA deposit that they are entitled to.  As a Realtor you are responsible to the Buyer, if you are the buyer agent.  The Buyer as the Withholding Agent is responsible to the seller for the FIRPTA Deposit.  As you know if anything goes wrong in the process and the buyer is put on the spot, both the Realtor and Title Company are likely to be named in any legal action.

As a Realtor and agent for your buyer, we would suggest that you request the following;

1) The tracking number for the FIRPTA documents sent to the IRS

2) Get a copy of the cancelled check cashed by the IRS.

So is your job over, not yet!

Technically you do not know if the IRS has placed the FIRPTA fund into the right account, nor do you know if the IRS process the FIRPTA documents.  The only way you will know that is to make sure the title company that processed your buyer’s closing uses our “Done For You FIRPTA Process”.

As part of our services we perform the following as part of our Done For You FIRPTA Process;

Monitor The Seller’s Taxpayer Account

Monitor the acceptance of the FIRPTA deposit and the processing of the FIRPTA document using the IRS Power of Attorney and inform the seller, the buyer, the title company and the buyer’s agent of the acceptance of the deposit/amount and processing of the documents/date.  Each has a vested interest in making sure the FIRPTA process is completed correctly