What Are The Rights of a Widowed Spouse in Homestead Property?
Video Summary
Hi! I’m Chip Waller. What are the rights of a widowed spouse in homestead property?
In order to start this analysis, to be able to give you advice, we need to know how title to this real estate was held. Was it held in your joint names as husband and wife? If so, the property automatically passes to the surviving spouse.
If the property was just in the decedent’s name, we then need to determine if there were any minor children, adult children of the decedent, as well as the surviving spouse.
If there were no children surviving – if there are no children of the deceased spouse, and he owned the homestead property just in his name, well, then the homestead property would pass to the surviving spouse outright.
If, however, the deceased spouse was survived by children, then the surviving spouse receives a life estate in the property with the remainder interest going to the children.
Now there is an election that can be made by the surviving spouse if she does not want to continue to live there or cannot afford the house during her lifetime in that she would be responsible for taxes, insurance and maintaining the property. She can elect to take a half interest in the property if the decedent was survived by children. And if she makes that election she must do that, I believe, it’s within six months of the date of death of the deceased spouse.
So if you have any questions about homestead property give me a call at 727-847-2288.
Thank you!
- Published in Real Estate, Videos
How Long Can I Stay in My Property if I Stop Paying the Mortgage?
Video Summary
How long can I stay in my property if I quit making my mortgage payments? Well, you can stay in it until such time as the mortgage foreclosure action is concluded, which is the sale of your property. It’s a public sale or auction, and even after the sale, then whoever purchases it must wait approximately 14 days before a Certificate of Title is issued. You can stay in there for that long, and then even after that time period because then the lender or whoever holds your mortgage must apply for a Writ of Possession, and then if they get a Writ of Possession, then the sheriff will serve that on you and then you have 24 hours to vacate.
I realize I have not given you a timeline as far as whether it’s nine months, a year or two years, and that’s because there isn’t a pat answer to that. It depends on the lender. I’ve talked to people who haven’t made payments for two or three years, and the lender has not filed a mortgage foreclosure action, and even when a mortgage foreclosure action has been filed, many of them languish in the court for years and not be pushed forward.
Also, if you retain the services of our law firm, we’ve been able to assist people in staying in their home for a considerable length of time, even after the foreclosure action, and try and work on trying to get a mortgage modification or resolving the foreclosure action without a deficiency judgment. Also delay it long enough if you want to try and affect a short sale.
So the amount of time as far as days and years or months is dependent upon how quickly your lender moves as far as referring the matter to a law firm to foreclose on you, and then how quickly the law firm proceeds with a mortgage foreclosure action, and even after filing the foreclosure action, how quickly they move the proceedings along. So I tell people if you don’t do anything after you’ve been served with a mortgage foreclosure complaint, you probably have about nine months to a year before they will be able to put you out of the property.
So if you get sued in a mortgage foreclosure action and would like some assistance, give me a call at 727-847-2288.
- Published in Real Estate - Foreclosure, Videos
What Can a Tenant Do if the Landlord Refuses to Fix the Property?
Video Summary
What can a tenant do if a landlord refused to repair the property? Well, the Landlord-Tenant Statute provides that you can give the landlord a seven-day notice to repair the property, and if they don’t, well, then you’re in a position to terminate your lease and vacate.
What I have found in talking with many tenants is they just want them to fix the property. They really don’t want to move out or can’t afford to move out and probably the landlord would be tickled to death if the tenant moved out, but the remedy that you have is to give a notice to the landlord that he’s got seven days in which to repair the problem and if they don’t, well, then you’re in a position of terminating the lease.
I have done this for some of my tenants in apartment complexes and although they’ve done it properly in my opinion, the apartment complex still has turned over this matter to collection agencies and turned them over to credit bureaus, which you can then contest, but that’s about the only remedy you have, and so if you have some problems, well, you can give me a call at 727-847-2288.
- Published in Real Estate, Videos
Can a Chapter 13 Bankruptcy Help to Forestall a Foreclosure?
Video Summary
Can a Chapter 13 forestall a mortgage foreclosure action? You betcha it can! Because once you file any kind of bankruptcy action, it is a federal court, and so it immediately stays the foreclosure action. And even if it’s scheduled for foreclosure sale, the Chapter 13 will stop the foreclosure sale if it’s filed just before the sale date after it’s already been going through a foreclosure.
I don’t do bankruptcies; however, my understanding of a Chapter 13 is that you basically say that I can make the payments, and I’m a little bit behind on my other payments, so the bankruptcy court – this is my understanding – will take your deficiencies or the payments that you’re behind, and let you spread that out over a 60-month period, but that means you’ve got to make your regular payment, as well as one-sixtieth of the back payments. And if you don’t make those payments, well, you get kicked out of a Chapter 13.
Now sometimes it’s sort of frustrating if you’re trying to foreclose a mortgage where people will file more than one 13. We call those a Chapter 26 or Chapter 39 if they keep filing, you know, several times after you go through the foreclosure process, but it can be very useful.
Also, if you file bankruptcy action, you have a good chance of possibly working out a mortgage modification in the federal bankruptcy court. So if you need a referral to a good bankruptcy lawyer, well, give me a call and I’ll be happy to give you the name of an attorney who will be glad to try and help you or refer you to someone that will do a Chapter 13 for you.
My phone number is 727-847-2288.
- Published in Real Estate - Foreclosure, Videos
How Do You Get Rid of an Unwanted Guest?
Video Summary
How do you get rid of an unwanted tenant? Well, you turn to the Landlord-Tenant Act, and the easiest way is if they haven’t paid the rent, you provide them with a three-day notice as to the amount of unpaid rent, and the notice gives them three days to pay the rent or vacate.
If they pay you the rent within the three days, you must accept it. If they do not pay it within the three days, well, then you can then file an eviction action to have them removed, and do not have to accept the rent after the three days expires. The three days are counted, if you served a three-day notice on a Monday, the three days are not up until Friday. They’ve got three full days in which to pay the rent.
You say, “Well, I just don’t want them in there.” Well, if they are a month-to-month tenant, meaning they don’t have a lease, then you can give them a 15-day notice prior to when the rent is due, and terminating their month-to-month tenancy, and then if they don’t move out you can file an action to evict them.
Let me caution you about self-help. You can’t go over there and do repairs and remove the front door. You can’t turn off the power, and if you do any of these shenanigans, well, then they can sue you as the landlord and get three times the amount of rent as damages. So you don’t want to do that!
You can also give a tenant a seven-day notice if they’re violating some term of the lease or doing some kind of conduct as far as damaging the property or not complying with the certain ordinances, and that gives them seven days to come in compliance, and if they don’t, you can then file an eviction action. This is a little more difficult ‘cause you have to prove first that they were not in compliance with the lease provision, usually, and then have to show also that they never corrected it, which is a problem if you have to go to court to evict them. So the easiest way, if they don’t pay the rent, is to give them a three-day notice.
And everybody wants to know, well, about how much do evictions cost? And usually I would say you need to budget between $1,000.00 and $1,200.00 in order to see about getting a tenant out, and that’s in the event that there’s not a whole lot of hearings that you have to go to, and it’s not the eviction from hell.
So if you have some tenant problems, and you need a lawyer to help you with an eviction action, well, give me a call at 727-847-2288.
- Published in Real Estate, Videos