Video Summary

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.

Video Summary

Do I need a lawyer for a property settlement agreement? The answer is yes. I suggest that you definitely consult with an attorney in order to draft a property settlement agreement, whether it be before or in contemplation of divorce or in contemplation of marriage or even after you are married and you want to do a post-nuptial agreement.

There are all sorts of disclosure requirements that are necessary in order for the property settlement to be effective, particularly when it comes to a divorce. As a result of that, I usually have my clients discuss or have a domestic relations lawyer prepare the settlement agreement so that it will hold up if there is a divorce involved.

Many times the property settlement agreements get set aside and they find that they are inequitable and therefore in divorce court I want a divorce lawyer to be able to defend any property settlement agreement in the event that there is a divorce proceeding. That is not quite as difficult in the event that you need to use those in conjunction with a probate proceeding where a spouse has waived their right to homestead or other rights, but it is a document that you definitely need to have a lawyer to make sure that it is done properly, the proper disclosures are attached to it.

The lawyer can only represent one of the parties. It is fine if you, and your spouse or your fiancée, write down everything that you are agreeing to and then take it to the lawyer, but the lawyer can only represent one party to a property settlement agreement.

If you have any other questions about a property settlement, give me a call and I will be glad to chat with you. My phone number is 727-847-2288.

Video Summary

What do I need to know about construction contract agreements?

I am assuming you are talking about this from a consumer standpoint or an individual point of view.

The first thing you need to do is investigate who you are contracting with. You need to ask them for their license to make sure that they are properly licensed. You also need to make sure that they have the proper insurances if they are going to work on your property, and you might ask them for that.

You need to also say, “Well, could you give me the last three jobs that you worked on so I can contact those folks and get a reference?” You need to do due diligence with these contractors as far as getting references, as far as checking with the Better Business Bureau, contacting Consumer Affairs to see if they have any complaints, and just Google them to see what the other consumers say; I know that there are ratings there.

It is really critical for you to do your due diligence before you enter into a contract. I have a saying, “It is hard to make a good contract with a good player,” and that is where you are going to run into trouble. If the contractor is bad, well, you are not going to wind up with a good contract to begin with.

Also, you need to verify whether or not a building permit is necessary, and confirm that the contractor is going to apply for a building permit. This has to do with something as simple as replacement of windows or replacing air conditioners, and certainly as far as roofs are concerned. If a contractor does need a building permit, before they get the building permit they are going to need a Notice of Commencement, which you will need to sign. This will protect you under the construction lien statute.

The contract also should start with a deposit. You do not want to give the contractor too much money before he ever starts the work. He is going to want some money, and he may be ahead of you a little bit as far as the amount of work that he does versus the value that you have received. So, you need to break down the payments in installments, and certainly you need to reserve a final payment. The reason for this is if for some reason the contractor would not complete the work, you should have enough money – or almost enough money – to complete the work by hiring someone else, whereas if you have given all your money to the contractor up front and he then leaves, then you are in a bad situation and it will cost you to get someone else to finish it. It will cost you a lot more than you initially contracted for.

Also, the contract that you have with your contractor needs to not only break down the payments, but also provide that they will be giving you progress payment affidavits stating that they paid all of their subcontractors and material men before you give them the next draw. Therein lies the reason why you want to break down your payments into at least three installments.

Before you give the contractor the last payment, you need to be sure that he provides you with a contractor’s final affidavit saying that he has paid everyone. Once he gives you that, you can give him the final payment, provided you haven’t received any sort of noticed from any material men or anyone else who says, “Well, you need to make sure I get paid.” If you have, you need to require your contractor to give you a release from that subcontractor or material man that they used on the particular job.

These are some of the things that you need to look at in your contract. The other thing is that you need to put down a date by which all this work is going to be done. The contractors may have some problems with doing that as far as any penalties are concerned, but you definitely need to have a time period. I get calls all the time that “he started on this, and I haven’t seen him in six weeks,” or whatever. Something in the contract should say an outside date that this should be done. So, if the job should take 30 days, you say, “Well, if it is not done within 30 days then I have a right to terminate the contract if it is not done in 60 – or some outside date.” This is difficult to negotiate, but you don’t want to just leave it open as to when this contractor is going to come back.

Construction contracts are hopefully fairly detailed and may have certain provisions in there about effective workmanship, on how you are supposed to claim it before you can bring an action against your contractor – which is a losing proposition. Something you else you want to address in the contract is what kind of warranties you are going to have, and be sure you receive those before you give them the final payment. Don’t take “no” for an answer, and “I’ll get it to you later,” or whatever. Say, “No. I need that before I give you this final check,” and make sure that once the building permit is pulled – or you see the building permit – that the Building Department signs off on your building permit on the final inspection.

I am not sure that I have covered everything, but hopefully that gives you a running start at looking at entering into a contract to have construction work done on your home or your property. If you have any questions about it or need some help with it, give me a call at 727-847-2288.

Video Summary

Can I use renovations done to my home office as a tax write-off if I’m not self-employed?

This is an issue that you need to talk to your CPA about is whether or not you can write off a portion of your home as far as the expenses, the utilities and depreciate a portion of your improvements as a home office.  I don’t necessarily believe that you have to be self-employed to do the write-off.  However you do need to devote it to your particular job as far as that’s concerned as being a requirement.

But the answer to the question lies between you and your certified public accountant as to whether or not you can write it off and how much you can write off and there is a certain, I don’t think a bright line test but it’s more of a feel for the CPA to be able to tell you what percentage of the utilities and the renovations that you would be able to write off.  So I urge you to call and speak to your CPA about that issue.  But if you have any other issues well give me a call at 727-847-2288.

Video Summary

What are the homestead laws in Florida?  The homestead laws were provided for in the Florida Constitution. The one that people are most familiar with is in Article XV that deals with real estate taxes. And it provides that if you’re a resident of Florida and you live in your home and you move in and own it before the end of any particular year, you can apply for homestead exemption by March 1^st of the following year and obtain homestead exemption on taxes. That means if you were granted homestead exemption, you get exempt the first $25,000 of your assessed valuation or taxable valuation from taxes which saves you about $500. You have to pay taxes on the taxable value of the property from $25,000 to $50,000. You get to exempt from $50,000 to $75,000 all taxes except school taxes and that will save you about another $300 and then you pay for all the tax on anything above $75,000.

There is an added benefit to having homestead exemption. It’s under Save Our Homes and I’m not sure where that’s provided for in the Constitution, but the net effect of it is that if you have homestead exemption the tax value of your property will not increase by more than three percent or the cost of living index, the lesser of the two. In years past that’s gone up very, very little and the longer you own the property the more you can appreciate it. So if your tax valuation does not go up every year, well then your tax bill should remain approximately the same since it’s only a millage rate and hovers around two percent in the county. It’s a little bit more if you live in a city.

So homestead exemption is really a great benefit and the longer you live in your home the more you appreciate it. The other nice thing about homestead and if you decide to sell your home and move to another house, whether you’re upsizing or downsizing, be sure you go whenever you apply for a homestead exemption on your new home, take your old tax bill with you and advise the property appraiser when you apply for homestead exemption that you had homestead on your prior home and there is something about portability, meaning they’ll prorate your old assessed valuation against the new assessed valuation and you can get to carryover some of the benefits from having homestead exemption on your original home.

So that’s I believe under Article XV as far as the tax valuation. Under Article X, Section 4 of the Florida Constitution, it provides that the creditors cannot place a lien or a claim on your homestead property. That’s property that you live in and you can protect that from the claims of creditors. It doesn’t matter how much you owe your credit card company or doctors or anyone else other than the United States Government, they cannot take away your home. Now there is an exception for the Internal Revenue Service and the federal government in that they can attach your home even though it’s homestead property. If you file for bankruptcy, there are certain rules as far as be able to exempt it as homestead. Here again that’s governed by federal law and will tell you how long you’ve lived and if you’ve owned the home for a certain number of days which I think comes to about two or three years, well then you can exempt the property. A lot also has to do with how much your homestead is worth as far as how much the exemption can be. But the Florida Constitution does protect your home from creditors.

Another thing that you don’t want to think about but if you pass away and you leave your home to your children or your grandchildren or your heirs, that exemption says inures or passes down to your children. So if you leave a bunch of credit card debt or any kind of medical bills, whatever you leave behind as far as bills are concerned and you leave your home to your children other than a mortgage, they don’t have to pay the creditors any money and the house or your homestead passes to your children.

This is a very complicated subject and so I might do another video about whether or not to put your homestead in a trust or a joint trust as far as that’s concerned and also the effects of transferring your home during your lifetime on Medicare and Medicaid. So if you have any questions about homestead, give me a call at 727-847-2288.