To list or not to list?

In Spain there is a general question that appears in almost all viewings of properties located just outside a village.
"Is there any impending infrastructure costs?"

What has happened is that in many areas land has been re-classified and the surrounding properties must install infrastructure. This may mean a pavement (sometimes loosing a few metres of land to accomodate a wider road and pavement), to installing underground electrics, water, etc.

Unfortuantly many vendors believe that they are not responsible for these additional costs (they may have even purchased the property aware of these costs and simply not carried them out yet) and therefore decide to pass on the infrastructure costs to the buyer.
This is ok IF the purchaer is aware of the situation however, what happens when a vendor does not want the listing agent to disclose this information?

This is what happened recently to a fellow agent. They listed a property but the vendor did not want to disclose infrastructure costs. The agent eventually decided not to list the property as they felt the repurcussions of not disclosing this infrastructure could damage their own reputation and risk the completion of the sale.
I completly agree with the actions of this agent. I too would not want to list a property of which I could not be completly honest with the purchaser about a cost that could run in to tens of thousands of euros...plus the purchasers lawyer and the notary would only divulge this information when requesting the Urbanistic Certificate.

Sometimes as an agent we have to make decisions, including not listing a sellable property, in order to preserve our reputation and to keep our consciences clear at night.

Have you ever come across a problem where you, as an agent, decided no to list a property? Let us know!

In the meantime Happy Listing!