Our method
How we research, and how we check.
Every serious page on this site says who wrote it, when it was last checked, and where it came from. This is what those lines mean.
Why this page existsA page that teaches should be able to show its work. This is ours.
Who writes it
Keighbor Research is the name we put on the writing. It is a small team, and the founder practiced residential real estate in Indiana before starting the company; that license is currently inactive. Nothing on this site is written by a model and published unread. Where a research assistant helped gather sources, a person read the source before a sentence was written from it.
Where it comes from
Primary sources first: the statute, the commission rule, the federal agency's own page, the form as the state publishes it. Where we quote a number, we link the page the number came from, and when that page moves the link breaks in our tests before it breaks for you. Industry bodies' own pages are cited for what they say about themselves. We do not cite other people's summaries of the law, and we do not link to services or affiliates from anything that teaches.
The state paperwork guides are a compilation of published requirements for 31 states, built from a written methodology and the same instruction set for every state, so one state's page is not deeper than another's by accident. The traps are drawn from the same research and rewritten in plain words, each with its citation and the person who can actually answer it for a sale.
How it is checked
Three ways, and they are ordinary rather than clever. A person reads every page against its sources before it goes up. Automated tests hold the site to its own rules: every legal hedge comes from one file so it cannot quietly weaken on the page nobody rereads; every statistic we quote links its source; every page that publishes a requirement carries the compilation notice. And the writing is checked for advice: the tests refuse phrases like “you must” and “you don't need” in anything that could be read as a ruling about somebody's sale.
What “last checked” means
The date on a page is the last time a person reread it against its sources. Right now that is September 2026 for most of the site. Laws, forms and fees change, and they change faster than a website does; a date is a promise about when we looked, not a promise that nothing has moved since. The official source is always linked so you can look yourself.
How it is hedged, and why
We say what sellers commonly do and what a state generally asks, and we say that your situation can be different, because it can. We never say a document is required and never say it is not: an absence of a duty is a legal conclusion the same way a duty is, and somebody acts on it. Where a page names who can answer a question for your sale, that is the person to ask.
This is a compilation of published state requirements, not legal advice, and no lawyer has reviewed it or your sale. Laws and forms change, counties and cities add their own rules, and whether any of this applies to you depends on facts we don't know. Treat every item as a starting point for a question, not as an answer. Confirm anything you plan to rely on against the official source we link, and run your list past a title company or an attorney licensed in your state.
When we are wrong
Write to hello@keighbor.com with the page and what you found. A person reads it, checks the source, and fixes the page or writes back explaining why it stands. Corrections are made on the page itself and the last-checked date moves. Every teaching page also has a “was this helpful” at its foot, and a no with a line about what was missing reaches the same inbox.
The guides start at every step of a sale; the state material at paperwork by state.