Our Opinion: New listing: 3 bd, 2 bath, 1 sex offender

Thursday, January 24, 2013

A proposed state law to make real estate professionals responsible for notification concerning sex offenders is misguided.

The proposal has been advanced by state Rep. Charlie Davis, R-Webb City. His bill would require a home buyer’s real estate agent to disclose to the seller’s agent that the prospective buyer also is a convicted sex offender. If a sale is completed, the buyer’s agent also would be required to notify neighbors living within a half mile.

Davis said his proposal was prompted by a personal experience when he and his neighbors were unaware that a sex offender had moved into the subdivision.

Although we generally favor maximum disclosure, we have concerns with the added costs and responsibilities associated with this bill.

A provision of the bill would require sex offenders to report their criminal past to their real estate agent.

Bunnie Trickey Cotten, president of the Jefferson City Area Board of Realtors, questions whether offenders would make such disclosures. “As I understand the proposal,” she said, “there is no penalty for their failure to do so.”

If disclosure is made and a sale completed, the agent inherits the burden of notifying neighbors.

A sex offender registry maintained by the state, however, already is available and accessible to the public. What the bill would do, essentially, is require real estate agents to be responsible for disseminating specific public information.

That transfer of responsibility would be time-consuming and costly for real estate agents.

The agent would be required to determine the names and addresses of everyone who lives within a half-mile of the sex offender, a task that would involve time and effort, particularly in densely populated areas.

The agent then would need a fool-proof method of notification, probably registered mail.

Failure to comply with the law would create liability for real estate agents, who likely would seek some form of insurance coverage.

Who would pay the added costs of labor, notification and insurance incurred by the real estate agent?

All or part of those costs invariably would be passed on to their clients — buyers and sellers of real estate.

Davis said he is not pushing his proposal to become law this session, but did want to spark discussion of the concept.

Unless our objections can be overcome, we would oppose this bill. Mandatory notification of public information does not justify the costs and consequences.

More like this story

TickledPink 3 months, 3 weeks ago

This is ridiculous. Anyone can find out who's on the offender list by looking at the Hwy Patrol website or going to familywatchdog.us. People who are truly concerned about who's living in or around their neighborhood will be proactive in checking it out and don't need to be spoonfed the information.

Paroquet 3 months, 3 weeks ago

Nice. I think I mentioned earlier in some snide comment of mine about "engendering recidivism".

I hate being right all of the time. It gets old. Oh, they'll do it--because none of the elected has the stones to vote against it.

What happened to "do the crime, do the time"? Well, what happened was that gateways were opened at some point for society to keep punishing perps after punishment was served. When the time is done, you're free and clear--NOT! And that's why you have a problem with recidivism--you got better, but nobody believes you despite you having been made to jump through counter-intuitive hoops for waaay longer than what you were sentenced to. Then you get out, and find your sentence has only just begun.

It isn't on the people to supercede or extend any punishment handed down by the courts. That's why we have the courts instead of lynch mobs you...you...tadpoles!

And what about that Christian value of forgiveness? Bzzt! Wrath and fury is what it amounts to.

Your bed. You sleep in it. I didn't make it. Don't make me have to deal with it.

Oh. Wait. You've already done that. Thanks! See what righteousness gets ya? A bad attitude just looking for an excuse.

(this dramatization brout to you by realitycheck/xyz.pdq)

connor 3 months, 3 weeks ago

Here's a bit more for your reality check. The Feminist Religious Left are more guilty of hounding offenders past a sentence date and charging them for the honor as well. More so than any Christian.

But taken as a whole I agree with your points as a society we do continue to punish criminals long after their sentence is served and it is wrong.

asb 3 months, 3 weeks ago

The information is already available as pointed out. This bill is not fundable and isn't needed. Being placed on the available lists, and other post-prison constraints on where sex offenders live and such are part of the sentence, not arbitrary. Blaming women, and their religions, and their politics for established sentencing guidelines is pathological, treatable, and not germaine to the discussion.

bluesfan13 3 months, 3 weeks ago

Actually, being placed on those lists is NOT part of the sentence. It is completely unrelated to sentencing. High school kids making out in a parking lot after football game, boy gets charged with child molesting, found guilty, placed on sex offender registry, even if only given probation or community service as sentence. Technically, he's guilty because the girl is under 17, so the jury had no grounds to find him innocent. Yes, this happens.

connor 3 months, 3 weeks ago

As pointed out below is is pretty relevant. But then I am not the one trying to scratch one groups back to cover my own either.

Rudy101 3 months, 3 weeks ago

The sex offender registry is an illegal ex-post facto law that does not protect the community, makes desperate outcasts more likely to engage in criminal behavior, and is used to banish from every single social avenue of the community, done without regard to actual danger posed, has no mechanisms for review or challenge and is done without hearing and outside of a sentence of a court of law.

That is why I will not register and nobody can make me. Sorry.

antirudy101 3 months ago

evil-unveiled.com/Minutemen

antirudy101 3 months ago

absolutezerounited.blogspot.com/2012/06/petty-differences.html

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