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

This is a follow up question on, can I remove an easement from my property? One of the followers wants to know, does the property owner have a right to use the easement? Yes, as long as it’s not an exclusive easement. If the wording in the easement language is exclusive, that means what it means and no, the owner can’t. Almost every easement that I have seen, particularly for ingress and egress, would allow not only the owner of the property to use the easement but also the benefited parcel, the person who the easement or the property it runs back to that needs to use it for ingress and egress.

The other question has to do with maintenance. It is the duty of the person who is using the easement, meaning the benefited party who uses it for ingress and egress to their property, to maintain the easement. The owner can also maintain the easement, if they want, but that’s up to each party as far as maintaining the easement. The owner has no obligation to maintain the easement for the benefit of the party that is using the easement to get to their property.

Hopefully, I’ve answered these follow up questions. If you have any more questions about easements, 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.

Video Summary

This is a follow up question on the previous post of, and I’ll have to read it because it’s rather long. Am I allowed to trim my neighbor’s tree, if it hangs over my property line? One of the followers has asked us, what about an invasive species? His neighbor is growing bamboo, and it has grown over into his property. He’s causing him frustration in that he can’t get the neighbor to cut it. I guess it’s a real problem on trying to cut bamboo out on your property.

The legal remedy for this is not inexpensive. We would probably file a nuisance [inaudible 00:00:56] property. [inaudible 00:01:05] ask about [inaudible 00:01:10] property. If that would be the case, you could file what they call an ejectment action to require them to remove the shed. If you have any questions, give me a call at 727-847-2288.