Video Summary

If I go through bankruptcy, can I keep my homestead property?  The answer is yes, you can.  When you file for bankruptcy, you cannot include your home in the bankruptcy action and if it is a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, you have to then of course keep paying your mortgage payments, the taxes, insurance and your other expenses related to your home.  But yes, you can exclude your homestead property from bankruptcy.

Now there are some limitations on exempting your homestead on how long you have lived there as so many days whenever you file bankruptcy.  So you cannot move into the state of Florida one day and then the next month file bankruptcy and protect your homestead property if it has a lot of equity in it.  So hopefully that answers your questions.  I don’t do bankruptcy so if you call me I’ll be glad to refer you to someone who will be able to help you with a bankruptcy if you would like to file a bankruptcy action and save your homestead or keep your homestead from being sold.

Give me at call at 727-847-2288.

Video Summary

Will I owe any income tax if I sell my home for more than what I paid for it?  I have to ask a question of you to be able to answer it and the answer’s probably no.  Have you owned the property and resided in it for two out of the past five years?  If so, you can then exempt from any sale $250,000.00 and if you own it with another party or husband and wife, you can exempt up to $500,000.00.  The sale does not have to be reported to the Internal Revenue Service. However I believe on your tax return there is a box that you have to indicate whether you sold your residence.

You also have to state that you haven’t taken this exemption also in the past, I forget how many years, but you can’t double dip if it’s a second marriage or a second home or residence.  So usually you do not have to pay it, however if you have not owned it and lived in it for two out of the past five years and you sell your home, then you will have to pay long term capital gains on it if you’ve owned it for more than I believe it’s six months or a year.  But you do have to pay tax.  Unfortunately if you sell it for less then what you paid for it, well then you do not get to take a loss because it’s not an investment property.  You only have to pay on the gain.

Also this is a question that comes up many times when someone short-sells their property.  And so if you sell it for less than what you paid for it and then your lender gives you a 1099 of whatever the gain is, you can offset the whatever gain the lender gave you a 1099 for against the sales price and your loss so you won’t have any income tax liability and you also may be able to exempt the transaction under the two year living there and owning it for two out of the past five years.

So if you have any questions on it or want to sell your home, well give me a call at 727-847-2288.

Video Summary

Can I terminate a Notice of Commencement? Before answering the question, I’d like to first talk about a Notice of Commencement and why we have notices of commencement.  They are an integral part of the construction lien law in Florida. And it’s the owner’s responsibility to record this Notice of Commencement before starting construction. In fact, in order to get a building permit, you must have a Notice of Commencement recorded.

The Notice of Commencement gives everyone who works on the property the name of the owner of the property so that they can give them a notice to owner that they are working on the property. It also gives the contractors name and address so that they sub contractor can also give notice to the contractor that he is giving notice to the owner that he’s working on it. So this all ties into the owner then, having the responsibility to obtain a waiver from anyone that is working on the property that has given notice to owner.

So in order to terminate your Notice of Commencement, you obtain an affidavit from your contractor that says he has completed all the work or he has been paid for his services and he has paid all of his subcontractors and material men. So at that point you are then in a position to terminate the Notice of Commencement and you can rely upon the contractor’s final affidavit.

There are some other circumstances whenever you may want to terminate your Notice of Commencement in the event that you started construction or you filed a Notice of Commencement and then you got a mortgage. Now you have a problem because the liens revert back to the Notice of Commencement, so now you have a mortgage and the lender won’t close on it because you can’t give them clear title or first lien position because the liens revert make to the Notice of Commencement.

So there is a process whereby you can terminate the Notice of Commencement and then later file a new one. I don’t have enough time to talk about whenever a contractor goes bad and you terminate his services, on how to file a Notice of Recommencement after a termination of a contractor.

If you have any questions about Notice of Commencements, give me a call at (727) 847-2288. Thank you.

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.