Video Summary

What happens if an unwanted guest or a trespasser is injured on my property? Am I liable? Well before you’re liable to anyone, whether they’re an invited guest or not, they have to show that you were negligent. And so if you maintain your property, I take it this is in the context of an improved residential piece of property, we have to show you were negligent in not maintaining the property which is usually not a particular problem in this area. Usually the problems with property are concerned is like with stairways as far as tenants or invited guests for that matter, or tenants if you’re negligent in maintaining your property.

If you have vacant property, there is some liability if there’s what they call an attractive nuisance in the property. Such as water, large sand piles, things like that where you attract children that may go there. You cannot set up say barbed wire to keep the motorcycles out or whatever, and put it about chin high so when the motorcycle goes through that they may be hurt in that manner. But otherwise if you just have a vacant piece of property, somebody goes out there, and steps in a hole or whatever, you don’t have liability as far as owning the property just because they’re injured. The injured person must show that you were negligent in maintaining your property, and so you don’t have liability just because someone gets hurt.

I don’t do a lot of personal injury cases, but that’s my understanding of the law.  If you have any questions about it, well give me a call at 847-2288 and I can refer you to another attorney. You may wish to obtain an umbrella policy on your homeowner’s insurance to protect you against any unwanted lawsuits that may come your way, as a result of owning property.  Thank you.

Video Summary

The answer to that is you possibly might have to pay, but there’s any number of reasons why you would not have to pay. A 1099-C indicates that your Lender has forgiven a portion of the debt that you owe and that is considered income. So I get many calls concerning this and people are panicked that they are gonna have to pay a lot of income tax. However, there are, first off, you have to go to the analysis to see if you also have an offsetting loss when you sold the property. So if you purchased the property for a whole lot more than what you sold it for, you have a loss which would offset any gain. There’s also an exclusion in the Internal Revenue Code that says if you have lived in the property two and resided there two out of the past five years, then you can exempt up to $250,000.00 of gain. So there are some other exemptions. There’s also, if this is not your homestead property, if you were insolvent and can show that, you’d have to consult with your CPA, you also do not have to pay any tax on the 1099-C. So the answer is, it’s a reporting form that I would suggest you take to a Certified Public Accountant to address the situation and if you have any questions give me a call at 727-847-2288.

Video Summary

Well, the answer to that is, try and negotiate it and work it all out. However, if all else fails, you’re going to have to call a lawyer and if you call this lawyer he’ll explain to you that you can file an action called a Partition Action. A Partition is just like a partition wall and it says that you can file a lawsuit suing the co-owner and asking the court to appoint a third party, which is called a Special Magistrate. The Special Magistrate’s appointed to then sell the property for all the owners of the property and then deposit the money in the registry of the court and then the parties can then ask that it be divided. If either party has invested more, paid the taxes, or have what they call special equities, they can assert those against the purchase price and whenever the money is divided equally. The cost involving these type of proceedings usually runs in the neighborhood of $2500.00 to $3500.00. However, if they’re highly contested they can be a whole lot more than that.  The time period usually take about nine months and unfortunately it involves usually family members or prior domestic relationship between two parties that  may not have been married, but had resided together and purchased a house jointly. So if you need to get some property sold and you need a Partition Action filed, well give me a call at 727-847-2288.

Video Summary

Well this usually, involves a family member or even a friend who has worn out their welcome and are staying in your property and you let them take possession of the property. You’re not charging them any rent, and however now want them to leave the premises for whatever reason and there are any number of reasons I get these calls. The action is not an eviction action. It is called a Unlawful Detainer Action, although it is handled the same as an eviction is handled, in that you give the party who refuses to leave the premises a notice advising that they have a certain number of days to vacate and if they don’t vacate, well then you file an action called an Unlawful Detainer stating that they entered the property lawfully, however they refuse to surrender the property after you’ve made demand upon them. So if you have this type of problem and you need to have someone to get rid of an unwanted guest or a family member that’s outlived their welcome, give me a call at 727-847-2288.

Video Summary

I am considering financing the sale of my home. What should I be aware of? Under Florida, you’re required to – when you sell your home you can take back a note in mortgage. And you cannot take back a land contract as they have in other states, because Florida is a judicial foreclosure state that requires notes and mortgages, land contracts, agreements for deed, to be foreclosed upon. So, the first thing you need to understand is, what’s the remedy in the event the person fails to make the payment?

The foreclosure process and the cost of going through a foreclosure is in the neighborhood of $3500.00 to $5000.00 with the filing fees and the court costs, and that’s if the matter is uncontested. The time period to go through the foreclosure process is estimated to be about nine months, if it is not contested. So, that should be a major consideration. I do not suggest that you do owner financing unless you get at least 20 percent of the money down. So, if you’re selling the property for $100,000.00, you would need to have a minimum of $20,000.00.

If you’re selling property that is of lesser value, you need to be aware of the cost involved as far as foreclosure and the time period, because you won’t be getting any money. Also, you would have to pay back due taxes if you foreclosed and took the property back, and it’s very hard to protect your property from vandalism or malicious conduct by the borrower if you start foreclosure. So, all these should be considered as to how much of a down payment you should receive before you consider doing the owner financing. I’d be happy to talk to you about what kind of interest rate you should be able to receive, and as far as owner financing is concerned. You cannot circumvent the foreclosure process by escrow and deeds.  You cannot do land contracts and not record them and simply tear them up and have the people removed, since Florida is a judicial foreclosure state.

So, if you’d like to explore owner financing, give me a call at 727-847-2288.