"Was told, after the fact, by the escrows officer, that if the seller is exempt, they don't have to fill in all the numbers. "
I almost never get numbers filled in. I usually advise people to fill in what they're sure about - and most of the time it's very little, sometimes just their SSN or EIN - and sign it. Anything else, I suggest they don't guess if they're not sure. CPAs are often not available at the signing time and I'm certainly not going to interpret any of the questions for them (although I will pull out appropriate docs for them to reference). EOs deal with this stuff on a daily basis but, as we know, sellers don't. It would be great if all EOs handled these like Jan's and sent them in advance!
As for being exempt or not, I'd say more often than not IME, the seller(s) have no clue about that, either. Sometimes, of course, it's pretty straightforward, but if it's an investment property, inherited property, 1031 exchange, and/or English isn't their primary language, it does get very interesting. (I had one earlier this month that hit three of those four potential complexities - plus she was on the elderly side... Oy! This was NOT a quick signing, as she had assured me it would be!)
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