Video Summary

If a contractor runs off with my money, well, it’s difficult to try and recover this. But if it’s a licensed contractor, you can submit a claim to the Construction Licensing Board. It’s under the Department of Professional Regulations, and they have a fund. I don’t know if that fund has any money in it. During the recession, it did not have any money, so the claims would have to be paid later on.

Before you’re able to make your claim, though, you need to sue your contractor and get a judgment against him in order to file your claim. Also, you’re not entitled to recover any attorney fees for filing your claim against a licensed contractor. The best thing to do is to make sure that the contractor is licensed so that you do have a recourse, and then if he runs off with your money, then you file a complaint with the building department in the Department of Professional Regulations and maybe pulled his license and complaint, and then sue him and get a judgment and make your claim with the Florida Department of Professional Regulations as far as whatever type of contractor he is.

If you have any other questions, you give me a call at 727-847-2288.

Video Summary

If I live in an unincorporated area, that means that you don’t live within the city limits of a city, so you live in the county. So that is what an unincorporated area is, and so you’d be governed by the county ordinances and pay the county taxes. If you’re in an incorporated area or an area where you’re in a city, well then you’re governed by both county and city ordinances and you pay both city and county taxes. So if you have any other questions, give me a call at 727-8417-2288.

Video Summary

What happens if I do work myself without a permit to my home?

Well, if you get caught, well, the building department would then require you to pull a permit, which they would charge you for that. You have to submit plans in order to be able to keep the work or whatever you do without the permit in place. Or, you have to take it all out and remove whatever improvements you made to the property without the permit.

The first thing you would need to do is determine whether or not you’d need a permit to do the particular work. Then, if you proceed without a permit or have someone do it that doesn’t get a permit, that’s the problem that you face.

Usually, un-permitted work is not discovered unless someone reports you. As far as that’s concerned, they investigate a complaint, but those are the consequences if the county finds out about it and sends a code enforcement officer out to look at the property.

You don’t have to let the code enforcement person in your property or on your property without a search warrant, which slows things down, but if they can see it from the road, well, that’s a problem. Then they can cite you.

If you have any other questions, well, give me a call and I’ll be glad to answer them at 727-847-2288

Video Summary

Between an easement and an offset or setback. An easement is where you have granted a right to use your property to someone. Usually it has to do with utilities and it’s shown on your plat or whenever you purchased the property, the developer set aside, let’s say, ten feet on the back of your property and allows the utility companies, like water, sewer, cable, to use that property. You own it, but someone else has the right to use it. Also you could grant a private easement for someone to drive in across your property, which would also be an easement, whereas an offset or a setback is something that’s imposed by the building department and the county or city where you’re situated, and they prescribe how close you can build to a property line or construct things close to the property line, and that’s called a setback, and that’s controlled by what kind of zoning you have, and as far as commercial property or residential property. And that’s how close you can build your structures.

Some of this is based upon public health and safety, and that they need … you talk about putting a fire truck or whatever between the properties on the rear setback, that has to do with your neighbors being able to, as far as view, and things such as that. So hopefully that answers any questions you have on the difference between an easement and an offset, which is really a setback, which is prescribed by a county or city as to how close you can construct something. If you have any other questions, give me a call at 727-847-2288

Video Summary

[inaudible 00:00:05] follow up, one of the followers asked a question about his parents. His parents passed away, and they are trying to deal with the mortgage company that has a lean against their parents’ house. The lender will not give them any information as far as the loan’s concerned. They would like to keep the house, be able to continue to make the mortgage payments and get the information.

One of the first questions that I have to ask with this follow up question of the follower, has there been a probate proceeding whereby your parents’ estate has been probated. If not, once the probate is started, the personal representative or the executor of your parents’ estate would be able to obtain this information from the mortgage company.

If, however, your parents executed what they call a life estate deed or a ladybird deed, so you wound up with the property as a result of their passing away, and there was no probate and they had previously conveyed it to you or you are joint tenant, this is problematic as far as getting the lender to deal with you, and this gets us on the topic of a quick-claim deed, but there is no easy solution to this.

There is a federal statute which is called the Garn-St Germain Act which says that the lender cannot call the loan due and payable whenever someone passes away and the homestead property goes to the children. Unfortunately, most lenders, whenever you try and deal with their service department, are not familiar with this, and you really have to take it to the next level. If you find yourself in that situation, I suggest you contact the lender or whoever has your loan and talk to them about, use the word Garn, G-A-R-N, and St Germain, those are legislators that passed this. That statute is 20 or 30 years old, and it’s a federal statute.

I tried to help somebody in this situation and, unfortunately, the amount of time that I spent on it turned out to be a fairly expensive proposition for me to handle it. I think I was will Wells Fargo, and I went all the way to the President’s office and they finally agreed to give the loan information to the beneficiary.

Hopefully I’ve answered your question, although I haven’t given you good news. By the way, you can’t use a quick-claim deed to transfer property out of a descendant’s name into your name. You have to go through a probate proceeding.

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