When the Address Is the Danger: Chao Lee on Selling a Home Safely
Most of what we do at this meeting assumes the address is the point. You put it on the MLS, you put it on a sign, you put it in front of as many people as possible. That is the job.
Our August 27 guest opened by asking the room to imagine the one case where all of that is backwards.
Chao Lee is the Development Director at SAVE, the domestic violence agency that has served Fremont, Union City and Newark for fifty years. She stepped in for SAVE's Executive Director, Jennifer Dow-Rowell, and brought a colleague from her team. She has been with SAVE since 2018, leading its fundraising, donor engagement and public relations, and she also serves on the advisory committee of the Immigration Institute of the Bay Area.
Her scenario was short. A client needs to sell so they can relocate. They are afraid that putting the home on the market is what will tell an abuser where they have gone.
Why this is our problem and not only theirs
The point Chao kept returning to is that a real estate agent is often the first professional a survivor tells. Not a lawyer, not an advocate. You. Usually because the sale is the practical thing they need and the story comes out alongside it.
That does not make you an advocate, and she was clear that it should not.
You do not need to become an expert or the advocate for this person. But you do need to know how to respond and who to call.
For most clients, selling a home is a transaction. For this client it is a safety plan with an escrow number attached.
Safe at Home, and the part that applies to us
The program at the center of the talk is Safe at Home, run by the California Secretary of State. It is free, and it is open to people experiencing domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, human trafficking, child abduction, and elder or dependent adult abuse.
A participant gets a substitute mailing address. Their real address stays confidential, their mail is forwarded, and California state, county and city agencies and the courts have to accept the substitute address as their address of record.
Here is the part that matters at a listing appointment, and it is written into the statute. Under California Government Code section 6209.5(a)(1), a Safe at Home participant is authorized to use the Secretary of State's designated address on real property deeds, change of ownership forms, and deeds of trust when purchasing or selling a home.
So the confidential address is not a workaround someone talked an escrow officer into. It is the participant's address for those documents, by law.
The catch worth knowing
Safe at Home binds government agencies. It does not bind private databases.
That is the gap Chao was pointing at when she asked the room to think about every system that touches the property. The MLS is not a county recorder. Neither is an HOA, and she called that one out specifically: the HOA's membership record, its mailing address, its correspondence. Those are the places a real address quietly survives after the recorded documents have been handled correctly.
Questions came up in the room about open houses, showings and what a listing agent's disclosure obligations look like in a situation like this. Those are real questions, and they are exactly the ones her own checklist says to route to qualified legal, title and escrow professionals rather than answer from the front of the room. On the title and escrow side, the answer from the room was early, specific, written instructions, and confirming what each department needs before anything moves.
The dos and the don'ts
The dos, read out from the slide by a member:
- Listen without judgment
- Ask what they need in order to feel safe
- Protect confidential information
- Connect them with appropriate support
- Coordinate with qualified legal, title and escrow professionals
And the don'ts:
- Do not promise legal protections you cannot provide
- Do not assume a mailing or residential address is safe to disclose
- Do not casually share sensitive information
- Do not make the client explain their situation over and over
- Do not assume the danger ends when the house is sold
That last one drew the most agreement in the room. The sale closes, they move, and nobody in the transaction knows whether they are still being followed. The address stays confidential after closing because the risk does.
One member added a point worth keeping: be respectful of what a client chooses to tell you and what they choose not to. They have their reasons, and it is not your job to know them. Another noted that the same caution has to reach our social media, which is where a lot of us publish an address without thinking about it twice.
What to say
Chao's suggestion was not to send someone away with "you should talk to a lawyer." It was this:
Thank you for telling me. Your safety is important and I want to make sure I handle your information appropriately. Would you like me to connect you with an advocate who can help you understand your options?
The goal is not to solve the situation. It is to respond safely and hand off to someone whose job this is.
The checklist
She called this the takeaway of the whole presentation, and had Anthony read the bold half of it back to her:
- Listen. Take the disclosure seriously.
- Ask. Is there anything I should know about how we communicate or handle your information?
- Protect. Limit access to sensitive addresses, phone numbers, email and documents.
- Refer. Connect the survivor with SAVE and other appropriate professionals.
- Don't advise beyond your role. Legal and transaction-specific questions belong with qualified professionals.
- Follow the survivor's confidentiality instructions, and document only what is necessary.
Or, as she put it more simply: your job is to sell the home. Their job is to make sure the person leaving it can do so safely.
What SAVE actually does
So that you know what you are handing off to. SAVE runs a 24 hour crisis line, a shelter in Fremont, emergency motel and safe housing for anyone who needs to leave immediately, rental assistance for six months to a year, case management, safety planning, counseling, and referrals. Safe at Home enrollment is part of their safety planning work.
They also do prevention, not only intervention. Their educators are in middle schools, high schools and colleges talking about what a healthy relationship looks like.
SAVE is not the only agency in Alameda County, and Chao was quick to say so. There are others in Hayward, Oakland, Castro Valley, the Tri-Valley and San Francisco. The right one is the one closest to your client.
For legal help, she pointed to Bay Area Legal Aid, which handles restraining orders, dissolutions and related matters for their clients at no cost.
Fifty years, and an invitation
SAVE was started fifty years ago by a group of women in Fremont with no resources and no budget, at a moment when a lot of women were entering the workforce and not being treated fairly. Chao has met the founders. The organization that grew out of that now runs everything listed above.
They are marking the anniversary with An Evening of Empowerment on Saturday, September 12, from 5:00 to 7:00 PM at 39900 Balentine Drive in Newark. There is a plated dinner, live and silent auctions, and a cake cutting for the fifty years. Everyone at the meeting was invited, and tickets are on SAVE's event page.
Get help
SAVE 24 hour crisis line: 510-794-6055
Safe at Home, California Secretary of State: 877-322-5227, or SafeAtHome@sos.ca.gov. Program details are at sos.ca.gov/registries/safe-home.
Bay Area Legal Aid: 800-551-5554
National Domestic Violence Hotline: 800-799-7233
If you are in immediate danger, call 911.
The morning
Watch it
Chao covers more than fits here, and the room's questions are worth hearing in their own words. This opens where Susan hands over to her.
The council recorded the meeting. This opens where Susan hands over to Chao, and runs to the end of the questions. watch it on YouTube.
Thank you
Thank you to Chao Lee and to SAVE for a subject that is genuinely uncomfortable and genuinely useful, and to Susan Munkner for making the introduction.
We meet Thursday mornings from 8:45 in Fremont. Guests are welcome, and the speaker calendar has who is coming next.
This recap is education for real estate professionals, not legal advice. Every situation is different, and the safe move is the one Chao described: refer to a qualified advocate, attorney, or title and escrow professional.
Photographs by Scott Capen, Scott Capen Photography, who shoots our Thursday meetings.
The conversation