Am I Required To Have An Escrow Account With My Morgage Payment?

 

 

Am I required to have an escrow account for my taxes and insurance with my mortgage payment?

 

That is a decision or a requirement that your lender will make whenever you apply for the loan. The usual case is if you’re getting a conventional loan and the loan – the value – meaning you’re only borrowing 80 percent or less of the value of the appraised value of the property, the lender may agree to let you pay your own taxes and insurance separately.

 

If however you’re getting an FHA loan or a VA loan or a high percentage loan meaning that you’re borrowing more than 80 percent of the appraised value, the lender is going to require you to escrow for taxes and insurance as well as possibly pay mortgage insurance each month, but that is something that you need to discuss with the lender when you make application for a mortgage as to whether or not the lender will allow you to pay your own taxes and insurance.

 

There’s another caveat to that is if you have that agreement with the loan originator, if they sell the loan to another servicer or another bank to accept your payments, the mortgage does provide that the successor lender can require you to pay or escrow for taxes and insurance which certainly wouldn’t make you very happy, but you do need to be aware that it is in the mortgage documents that it’s up to the lender to decide whether or not you have to escrow for taxes and insurance.

 

So, the answer to the question is: it’s up to your lender as whether or not you’ve got to have escrow for taxes and insurance with your mortgage payment.

 

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

 

 

 

 

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Is It Legal For A Real Estate Agent To Represent Both Buyer And Seller?

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Is it legal for realtors to represent both the buyer and the seller in a real estate transaction?

 

The answer to that question is: yes, it is. That’s called a transactional broker and whenever you list the property, if you’re the seller, you will sign something where they’ll disclose that they will be acting as a transactional broker rather than a seller’s broker or a buyer’s broker and from my experience that a very, very high percentage – as much as 99 percent of the residential realtors serve as transactional brokers.

 

So, they take the listing and they advertise it and if a buyer happens to call someone else or the listing agent – the same realtor – well, they can then show it to the buyer and enter into a contract. They are really not representing either party.

 

The seller pays the real estate commission and they have a duty to deal in good faith or deal in good faith with both the seller and the buyer and there’s certain things that they should or should not do as far as in that capacity.

 

A transactional broker is different than a buyer’s agent. A buyer’s agent has only loyalty to the buyer and the buyer may be obligated to pay his own agent and the transaction and that should be disclosed as far as whenever the agent goes forward with the transaction.

 

And also you have exclusive seller’s agents from time to time and in commercial transactions it’s not unusual to have a agent who is the buyer’s agent and who’s the seller’s agent, but residential transactions, it’s almost the rule rather than it’s the exception to the rule where you don’t have the real estate broker serving as a transactual broker and dealing with both the buyer and the seller and really representing neither other than dealing in good faith with both.

 

 

If you have any questions about it or need to review your listing agreement, give me a call at 727-847-2288.

 

 

 

 

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What Are The Repercussions Of Breaking A Lease Agreement?

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What are the repercussions for breaching a lease agreement?

 

Well, let’s first start with the tenant. That’s usually the one that is looking to breach or move out of a lease prior to its expiration or not paying the rent.

 

So, the most common breach of a tenant of a lease agreement is where they don’t pay the rent. The landlord then has the right under the Florida Landlord Tenant Act to file a three day notice to the tenant telling them that they got three days in which to pay the rent or move out and the landlord can then sue for possession and to have the tenant removed by the sheriff.

 

That process takes about 30 to 45 days. Also, the landlord can sue the tenant for any damages or any back due rent. Depending upon the lease is how that’s to be calculated and when they calculate it, so those are the usual circumstances whenever a tenant breaches the lease, it’s for non-payment or they may violate some other rule.

 

Again, the landlord must give the tenant a certain notice, giving them, I believe, it’s seven days in order to correct the deficiency such as if they had a pet in the apartment or the house and it was in violation of the terms of the lease, well, they give a seven day notice and tell the tenant they must correct it in seven days or they’ll evict them and if they do it again, well, they will have a right to evict the tenant.

 

On the other hand, we have the landlord – let’s say that they have leased the property to the tenant and the tenant is paying the rent – this sometimes rises in the event that the landlord is sued in foreclosure and the tenant is of course sued and then they have – the question is: well, has the landlord breached the lease and the answer is: no, until the final judgement of foreclosure is entered and the property is sold and the tenants are required to leave.

 

Does the landlord breach the lease? In that event, the tenant does have a cause of action against the landlord. They could sue them for the breach of the lease and their liability for that.

 

Another circumstance where the landlord has leased the property and has decided to sell the property and the tenant is still in possession. The landlord cannot unilaterally terminate a lease. The tenant has a right to remain in possession and really it’s very difficult for the landlord to show the property, but if they do sell the property, whoever purchases it is bound by the provisions of the lease.

 

So, the landlord has a hard time breaching it other than it’s the landlord’s failure to possibly maintain the property. In that event, the tenant gives a notice to the landlord of the failure of the landlord to do the repairs or maintain the property and the tenant’s remedy is to terminate the lease and move out.

 

Again, that requires a seven day notice to the landlord giving them seven days to take care of the problem. If a landlord does not or commence then to fix these problems, well, the tenant can terminate the lease and move out.

 

So, those are some of the most common examples of and the remedies of both the landlord and the tenant as far as a breach of a particular lease. This has to do primarily with residential tenancies rather than commercial tenancies.

 

So, if you have any questions about your tenant or your landlord, give me a call at 727-847-2288.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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When Is A Certificate Of Occupancy Required?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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What Is A Recourse Loan?

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What is a recourse loan? Well, most loans are recourse, so whenever you sign a promissory note, it says, “I promise to pay,” and whenever you sign that, it obligates you to pay the amount that is set forth in the promissory note, or in the loan documents. Almost all commercial paper and any loans that you get from banks or financial institutions, loan companies, anyone else, is it is going to be what they call recourse; means they have a right to sue you.

 

The opposite of recourse is non-recourse, and that is whenever the note says that they will not look to the maker for payment; they will look only to the collateral. So, probably the better question, or answer, to that is:  is that you want to sign non-recourse paper, meaning that they can’t sue you if for any deficiency they take back whatever collateral it be, whether it be automobiles or real estate. However, it is difficult to obtain these loans and most lenders want you to be personally liable for the loans or have recourse paper or a recourse loan.

 

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

 

 

 

 

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