What if a Homeless Person is Living on Your Vacant Lot?
Video Summary
What if a homeless person is living on your vacant land? You can call the police and have them come out to the property. You probably need to be present and they will remove or tell the homeless people who are there that they must leave and make them leave the property. They will give them a warning. It’s called trespass after warning. So if they returned to the property, they can be arrested. The problem with this, is of course identifying them, if they did return. It’s a reoccurring problem as far as your property’s concern, but you can continue to call the sheriff or the police department, have them come out and have the homeless people removed. It’s very doubtful that they’ll be able to identify the people who they previously gave trespass notice to in order to have them arrested or if they do want to go through all the actions necessary to have the person hauled away to jail for trespass, which is a misdemeanor. So it’s a practical problem that you have whenever you have homeless that are occupying your vacant property. You can also put up no trespassing signs and then authorize someone who oversees your property to call the sheriff and have the sheriff go out to the property and have the people removed, as a result of it being posted. As far as no trespassing, this concern, I would suggest that you contact the sheriff or the police department about posting your property, so that you would be able to have the sheriff go out there or the police go out there and have the trespassers or the homeless folks removed from your vacant property. This is applicable only to vacant property, and there’s a different law than involves folks that are living in your property, in an improved house or shelter that you have on your property. If you have any questions about this, you can give me a call. I’ll be directing you probably to the Sheriff’s department, the police department. My phone number is (727) 847-2288.
- Published in Real Estate, Videos
Who Should I Choose as Trustee of My Trust?
Video Summary
Who should I choose as trustee of my trust? Whenever you’re doing estate planning and need to select a trust successor trustee to your revocable trust, you usually appoint a family member. That family member should have some business experience and be one that you believe that would want to treat everyone fairly and to follow your wishes and what you designate under the provisions of the trust. If you are dealing with a lot of money, over a million dollars you may want to consider designating a trust company or a bank with trust powers for them to administer the trust and invest the money so that they can continue to pay the money out for it. If you have a, uh, a trust where you simply want to have your assets distributed to the various beneficiaries, while that’s relatively simple to do, and, uh, family members should be able to, uh, take care of that and if they have any questions, you could direct them to contact the attorney who prepared the trust or can contact my office and I would be glad to give them some information and or, uh, represent them. As far as administering the trust, the trustee would be required to, uh, obtain a federal identification number for tax purposes. Since the trust, when it becomes your revocable, uh, becomes a taxpayer and an information return is required called a fiduciary tax return. And so I can give you some guidance as far as the, uh, federal ID numbers concerned, filing the inventory, the notice of trust and the public records and gentlemen, they represent you as far as, administering the trust and taking care of, following the wishes of the person who established the trust. If you have any questions about trust administrations, give me a call at (727) 847-2288.
What is the Uniformed Transfers to Minor Act?
Video Summary
What is the uniform transfers to Minors Act? That is a statute which allows an account, it can be stock, a bank account to be established in the name of a custodian for the benefit of a minor, and the account is to be held for the minor until they reach age 18. Under certain requirements or provisions, the account can be held until they’re age 21. The account can be established by a grandparent and they can serve as the custodian for the minor, the income from the account, whether it be stock or a bank account, will be reported under the minor’s name rather than in the custodian’s name or the trustee’s name. For the minor, it is a, uh, convenient way I put that, uh, sometimes in wills where you wish to leave a relatively modest amount to a minor, that you designate their one of their parents or your child to hold the money under the uniform transfers to minors act for particular for a minor. And that way it doesn’t require a trust provision and is a, a simple way to have the money held until the minor reaches age 18 or possibly 21. If you want the money to be held longer than that, then you would need to, uh, put it into a trust. So if you have any questions about the uniform transfers to minors act, well, give me a call at (727) 847-2288.
- Published in Estate Planning, Videos
Are You Required to Fill Out a Sellers Disclosure Form?
Video Summary
Are you required to fill out a Seller’s Disclosure Form? The answer is no. You’re not under Florida law. Whenever a seller is selling residential real estate, they’re required to disclose to the buyer any matters that may readily affect the value of the property, which are not readily observable. So that is the duty of the seller. To do that, most of the standard real estate contract also makes out a contract provision that you are disclosing any matters that may material affect the property. And a realtor will also require you to fill the seller’s disclosure form out since they want to be protected and not have a buyer accuse them of not disclosing matters that they knew about and that they can rely upon the seller’s disclosure. a seller’s disclosure is not required on vacant property or commercial property. That is a Buyer Beware and no seller disclosure is required and do not suggest the seller of commercial or vacant property, complete a seller disclosure form and further caution them about reviewing the contract and make sure it’s not one of the standard residential contracts that required disclosure since that may impose additional liability on them that they ordinarily would not have. If you have any questions about selling your property and disclosing matters, will call me (727) 847-2288.
- Published in Real Estate – Selling, Videos
Does Florida Have Land Contracts Like They do in Michigan?
Video Summary
Does Florida have land contracts like they do in Michigan? And the answer is no. Whenever you sell property in an installment basis, you must file a judicial mortgage foreclosure action. And in order to eliminate the interest of the purchaser’s, interest in the property, that’s whether you called it a land contract agreement for deed, or no mortgage. The Florida Supreme court has a rule that even unrecorded agreements, and when they’re on an installment, sales basis, , with real property, you have to file the poor closure action. Florida is one of, I believe, seven States that has a judicial foreclosure proceeding versus a nonjudicial proceeding, which allows you to foreclose or take back your property without going through court. I received this question, periodically from people who are in the Midwest and Michigan, which are nonjudicial foreclosure States. But, in Florida you cannot have a land contract. If you do, it still has to be foreclosed, which is, I understand the primary purpose and using a land contract. So if you have any questions on how to sell your property on installment basis, give me a call at (727) 847-2288.
- Published in Real Estate – Selling, Videos