Can I Remove An Easement From My Property?
Video Summary
Can I remove an easement from my property? Well, that’s really a good question, and easement law is a complicated area of law. An easement, first let’s define what that is. It means that someone owns the property, and then someone else has the right to use it for a particular purpose. So you have the burdened property, which is the person who owns it, and then you have the benefited property or a benefited person who has a right to use your property for particular purposes. If they’re private easements such as utility easements, things such as that, or usually you have ingress and egress easements, meaning a way to get in and out of property, those cannot be eliminated from your title unless you own both the burdened property, where the easement is situated, as well as the benefited property. So an easement going from Parcel A to Parcel B, you can’t eliminate that private easement. However, if you own both A and B, well, then you can extinguish the easement, or the easement goes away since it’s no longer needed since you own both parcels.
Now, if you’re talking about an easement or a road right of way that the public – that’s shown on a plat or something like that with the county, you can petition the county to vacate a road right of way if – that’s really not an easement. It’s usually a road right of way, and the county can issue a – if they decide to do so, can issue an order or a – well, whatever the Board of County Commissioners issues to vacate the road right of way. And then the road is then – one half of it goes to each property owner on each side of the road. But that takes a petition, and be sure that you don’t have anybody else out there that could object to it. So it’s difficult to get rid of private easements.
Road right of ways can be vacated if they’re basically abandoned or have never been used, such as an old plat. So if you’ve got an easement across your property, well, you need to see who it’s benefiting and possibly be able to get rid of it that way, but that’s most difficult to do.
Anybody have any other question about easements, well, give me a call at 727-847-2288.
- Published in Real Estate, Videos
Do I Need An Attorney To Evict A Tenant?
Video Summary
Do I need an attorney to evict a tenant? Well, the answer to that is no, you don’t if you know how to evict them. Usually, you evict tenants because they haven’t paid the rent, and that starts by the landlord giving the tenant a three-day notice. A three-day notice is spelled out in the Florida statutes, and it can only be for rent. So if you’re going to do the eviction yourself, you need to look up that notice and deliver it to the tenant and give them three days from the date that you deliver the notice. You don’t count the day you give it to them, and then you start counting the days. You can’t count Saturday or Sunday or a legal holiday, and after the three days have expired and they haven’t paid the rent or vacated, you’re then in a position to file a complaint for eviction, and that’s where you can try and find the law suit or complaint. I think there’s some forms out at the law library or whatever, and you can complete those and basically attach the notice to them saying that they haven’t paid the rent and that they owe you the money, and then you can file that in court.
And then after that, you then have to see if they file a response. If they do file some response, the judge will then usually set a hearing to determine the amount of rents owed, and you have to appear in court. Sometimes it just sits there and nothing happens, and that’s whenever you get frustrated or need to talk to a lawyer, or you go to a hearing and the judge doesn’t evict them and sends you on your way. So at that point, you probably do need a lawyer, and then we’ll have to look at your handy work to see whether or not – how good a lawyer you are.
So no, you don’t need a lawyer if you know what you’re doing. Some landlords who have multiple properties are a little pro at it and so that they’ve been doing it by themselves for some time, whereas if this is the first time that you’ve tried to evict a tenant, you probably need to go ahead and hire a lawyer and then copy what he does so that the next time you’ll be able to do it ’cause hopefully he’ll make it look easy for you.
So no, you don’t need a lawyer. But if you do need one, well, give me a call at 727-847-2288.
- Published in Real Estate, Videos
Foreclosure Commercial
In his continuing efforts to educate and serve the community, Chip Waller talks about real estate foreclosure and what your options are in this commercial. If you have questions about a foreclosure or questions regarding your options with a mortgage that you are having financial difficulties paying, call our office and schedule an appointment to become better informed and make an educated decision. We are here to help you!
- Published in Real Estate - Foreclosure, Videos
What Is An Estate Planning Lawyer’s Role When Negotiating A Marital Settlement Agreement?
Video Summary
What role does an estate planning lawyer play in negotiations of a marital settlement agreement? Well, there’s any number of marital settlement agreements. There are marital settlement agreements that are entered into prior to the marriage, which is a pre-marital agreement. There are some that are entered into after the marriage for the parties to address each others’ rights and their spouse’s estate. And then there are the marital settlement agreements that are entered into in conjunction with a divorce proceeding. The estate planning lawyer will want to review the agreement to verify that the spouse of your client has waived their rights to claim a portion of your client’s estate in the event your client passes away or my client passes away.
That would include the waiver of the elective share that a spouse has to take 30 percent of my client’s estate. Also, as far as homestead is concerned, they waive their right to serve as a personal representative and also the right to any property that is acquired after the marital settlement agreement has been entered into and give full authority and latitude for my spouse to leave whoever they want to their property in their will or trust. And so that’s what you’re looking for whenever an estate planning lawyer looks at the marital settlement agreement, and I usually have asked a lawyer who does domestic relations to prepare these because they are tested much more stringently or could be set aside much easier or attacked in the event there’s a divorce proceeding.
So if it could pass, it will almost always pass the test of not being able to be attacked after death. So the estate plan lawyer is interested in seeing that the spouse of his client has waived their rights in his client’s estate to allow his client to leave his assets to whomever he would like, or as an alternative to be aware of what obligation he has to provide for his spouse in his will or trust. If you have any questions, well, give me a call at 727-847-2288.
- Published in Estate Planning, Videos
Ask Thomas Mitchell: What Documents and Information Do I Need to Gather Before Filling Out a Will?
Video Summary
Good afternoon. I’m Tom Mitchell, one of the partners here at Waller & Mitchell in New Port Richey. And I wanted to talk with you today for a few minutes about what you need to do before you come in to make out your will. Making out a will is very important and it’s part of your overall estate plan, so you need to go back over all of your various accounts, bank accounts, brokerage accounts, other personal property that you might have, jewelry, cars, get all that information together so that you know what you have. While you’re doing that, it’s very important to check to see how the asset is titled. If you have a beneficiary or it’s joint with some family member, you need to understand that that asset is going to be passed to that person by virtue of the titling.
So if you have in your will that you want your estate divided equally among your three children, but you’ve already put one child on most of the accounts, that one child is going to get most of the accounts and it’s not going to go equally to your three children. So it’s very important to know what those account statements say as to the titling. Bring all that information in. We’ll go over it with you and see what you need to do to make your estate pass the way you want it to, not just your estate through your will, but your overall estate.
This is Tom Mitchell from Waller & Mitchell. Our telephone number is 727-847-2288. We’re located in New Port Richey. Have a good day.