Video Summary

Am I required to purchase a survey if I’m purchasing a home?  No, you are not, unless your lender insists that you receive a survey.  Now sometimes the lender says, “No, you don’t need a survey,” however tells the closing agent and the title agent that they must delete the survey exceptions on their title insurance policy, in which case the title agent will say, “Well, we will need a current survey in order to be able to provide that coverage to the lender.”

You may be required to get a survey by the closing agent and title agent as a result of the lender insisting that this exception to the title insurance be deleted.  It has been my experience that lenders do require this exception to be deleted so that, in most instances, if you are going through a bank to get a loan, they are going to require a survey, which just shows that there are no encroachments.

However, if the seller has a current survey, which means that there have been no changes in it, then the title company and the lender may agree to use the old survey with an affidavit signed by the seller and you saying that this survey is accurate and thereby avoid the cost of having a new survey performed.

A survey is really very interesting and informative in that it’s a bird’s-eye view of the property.  It shows you the dimensions of your particular lot, where your house or the improvements are in relationship to the boundary lines, but also show where there are easements, also fences, sidewalks, where the street is.  I always like to see a survey and go over with it with a buyer whenever they are buying property because they usually just deal with the legal description, which doesn’t let them know the size of their property, and so therefore it is very informative.

So you are not required to have one.  I think it’s a good idea to have one.  Unless your lender insists that you have a survey, you don’t have to purchase one, the cost of which is about $300.00 to $350.00.

So if you are looking to buy a piece of property or sell it, well, give me a call at 727-847-2288.  Thank you.

Video Summary

Can I buy a home if I have bad credit?  The answer to that question is of course you can.  However, you are going to be somewhat limited in that you are going to have to have a cash down payment and find a seller who is willing to finance the property if you don’t have sufficient monies to pay cash for the property.  The time that the credit’s going to hurt you is, if you have to go to an institutional lender, and they look at credit scores in order to determine whether or not you qualify for their loans.  It’s getting more and more difficult to qualify for an institutional loan or going through a bank.  So you are probably limited to talking to sellers who are willing to finance the property.

Another way that you can go about this is to enter into a lease with an option to purchase, wherein you give the seller a small down payment.  And then they can apply a portion of each monthly payment to your purchase price and then hopefully hold owner financing, but build your credit back up so that you can refinance the property and pay the seller in cash after a certain period of time under a lease with an option to purchase.

So, yes, you can buy property.  However, your options are limited to sellers who are willing to enter into owner financing or leases with options to purchase.  If you would like to discuss this further, well, give me a call at 727-847-2288.  Thank you.

Video Summary

Can a seller avoid paying closing costs by having the buyer pay them cash on the side outside of closing?  It’s sort of like avoiding paying – evading taxes by not reporting income to the Internal Revenue Service and that could be considered a crime to do that.  Likewise, you are defrauding the Department of Revenue in that you are obligated to pay the documentary stamps on the sales price.  And you are not to avoid those, because you are really evading those if you have a transaction on the side wherein the buyer pays the sellers the cash and is not reporting with the closing agent.

There’s also any number of other problems with that, such as the currency transaction if you are actually dealing in cash, and that anything $10,000.00 or more you have to fill out various currency forms with the bank if it has to be deposited.

So the answer to your question is you are committing a crime or a fraud against the state of Florida by doing that, and you need not contact my office to handle such a transaction because I am not going to be part and parcel of it.  I would also caution you to do that because if there is ever a problem later on about the transaction, trying to show that cash or the actual sales price, you are not going to be very successful whenever you have been involved in this transaction, particularly whenever the buyer then turns around, and he sells it and wants to take credit for the cash that he paid.  Do you really think that he’s going to be looking out for the seller?  So it’s just a very bad idea, and I can’t say enough bad things about it and would encourage you don’t engage in that activity.

So if you would like to close a transaction and pay documentary stamps on the full purchase price, give me a call at 727-847-2288, and I’ll be pleased to handle it for you.

Video Summary

Can I finance a home for my children?

That has been something that’s been done for many, many years. Parents want to help out their kids and they sometimes take out a mortgage on their house in order to give their kids financing and they secure it with a note and mortgage.  Sometimes they do it so that if the child is married to someone that they are concerned about they will make sure that, if there’s a divorce or anything like that, that they are still protected to get their money back or they can afford to give a gift to the child.  That is something that has been going on for as long as I’ve been practicing law.

However Congress has now passed what is called the Dodd-Frank Act and it is very comprehensive; it is over 1,000 pages of legislation, and it is designed to control financial institutions in consumer financing.  Under this bill, they say that you have to comply with a qualified mortgage, which is a 30 year mortgage and has all sorts of requirements under it and interest rates that you must comply with, if you are going to provide financing to a third party; which would include your children.  This does not make any sense.

This does not apply to sellers who are selling their property and then taking back a note in mortgage; that is called a purchased money mortgage, and sellers can do that once a year.  It also does not comply with if its investment property and not their home.

In answer to your question is if you do do the financing for your children and your mortgage does not comply with Dodd-Frank it is subject to various penalties and I don’t know whether or not they would ever have a defense if they choose to assert it as to the enforceability or the penalties in a foreclosure action if you attempted to foreclose a mortgage that does not comply with Dodd-Frank.

They made it extremely difficult and it does not make any sense whatsoever and would hope that if you are frustrated by this you might want to write to your congressman or senator and suggest that the amendment be made to Dodd-Frank which would allow family members to lend money to other family members and not be subject to the regulation and the law under Dodd-Frank.  That is a very long answer and however it is unfortunate.

If you have any other questions I’ll try and answer them; about Dodd-Frank and owner financing.

My phone number is 727-847-2288.

Video Summary

How much money is saved if you pay cash for a closing versus obtaining a mortgage?

If you are a cash buyer your customary closing cost consists of recording the deed, if you wish a survey, the cost of the survey, a home inspection, which I would recommend, but you would pay for the cost of the home inspection and any termite inspections.  Otherwise your only cost that you have would be the cost of recording the deed.

You would need to look at the contract closely to make sure that there’s no closing fee by the title agent when you look at the contract.  If you obtain a mortgage or go get a mortgage from an institutional lender, you are looking at probably spending a couple of thousand dollars with the lender in order to pay their processing fees and their appraisal fees and various costs and charges including the documentary stamps and intangible tax on the mortgage.

It is going to cost you at least a couple of thousand dollars to go through the financial lender.  If you have an owner financing; meaning the seller is financing the property for you, you would still have documentary stamps and intangible tax on the note and mortgage which is $5.50 per $1000 that you would have and some additional recording costs and possibly closing fees and title insurance.

You save a substantial amount of money if you pay cash at closing versus obtaining a mortgage particularly from an institutional lender.

If you have any questions about that give me a call at 727-847-2288.