Video Summary

Does a final judgment of divorce convey real property?  It can convey real property; however you have to have express language that the judgment serves as a conveyance.  In particular when we have these final judgments that are done by the parties rarely do they provide for the judgment to serve as a conveyance of the property to the one particular spouse who’s supposed to receive it.

Some of the final judgments I see prepared by divorce counsel they say that the other party is to execute a deed conveying the real property.  So the proper language that needs to be incorporated in a final judgment of a divorce is that the judgment serves as a conveyance to real property from one spouse to the other. So if you want the final judgment to convey real property to one spouse, to the other you need to pay particular attention to the wording in the final judgment.

There is language that can be used in deeds whereby a spouse conveys their interest to the other spouse. If there’s a mortgage on the property ordinarily they would require documentary stamps.  However, if it is their homestead property and it is being conveyed pursuant to a marital settlement agreement and divorce proceeding then the Department of Revenue does not require the documentary stamp be placed on the conveyance.

If, however, we have more property than just the home then other property that is conveyed from one spouse to the other, pursuant to a marital settlement agreement, would require documentary stamps on the transfer based upon one-half of the unpaid balance of the mortgage that encumbers it.  If there’s no mortgage on the property then there would not be any documentary stamps.

So if you are getting divorced and you want the final judgment of divorce to convey the real property from one spouse to the other you need to pay particular attention to the judgment that is entered.  And it is a great idea to provide for that so that there is not a problem with judgments attaching to the spouse who is supposed to convey the property, their interest after their divorced or preexisting judgments.

So if you need some help with that well give me a call at 727-847-2288.

Video Summary

What happens to past due property tax when I short sell the home? Well that’s a fairly easy one. It’s when you short sell your home the property taxes are paid out of closing money and it reduces the amount that your lender receives or agrees to take in satisfaction of their lien and hopefully releases you from any liability on the loan. So those taxes are paid just like any other closing, when you close on your property and sell it to someone else. The back due taxes are paid, since they’re a lien against the real property rather than your personal obligation. So they are all taken care of and it is only up to you to negotiate with your lender that they’ll take the net proceeds less the payment of the real property taxes in satisfaction of the mortgage.

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

Video Summary

Does transferring your property relieve you of the financial obligations of a promissory note and mortgage? The answer is no. When you sign a note and mortgage, you sign the note that says, “I promise to pay you, the bank, or a lender, the money, plus interest,” and it outlines the payments. Then you also sign another document, a mortgage, which is a lien against the property so that if the payments are not made on the promissory note, then the lender is in a position to foreclose and take the property away from the owner.  So by transferring the property to a third party or to an entity, the bank still has a lien against the property since the lien was recorded before the conveyance and you still have the responsibility under the promissory note. 

This is particularly frustrating when you have what they call a “white knight” who says, “Oh, I’ll help you with your foreclosure action.  Just deed me the property and I’ll see about trying to make the payments or get the payments paid.”  Well, what that does is you lose control of the property but you still have the liability under the promissory note and it still affects your credit.

So transferring property or some people would say deeding your property to a third party, does not relieve you of any debt on the property and you can still be sued and be held responsible for the promissory note if the lender so elects. 

So if you have any more questions about transferring the property, trying to avoid liability under your note and mortgage, give me a call at (727) 847-2288. Thank you.

Video Summary

What is the significance of recording a satisfaction of mortgage? Well, the significance is it means you paid the thing off and so that’s just terrific! And so by recording a satisfaction, the lender signs it and you put it in the public record that shows that the mortgage is no longer a lien against your property. Many people talk about taking a name off of a deed or satisfying a mortgage, the way the official record books operate is you put documents in the official record books and you never take them out, and so then you simply file another document to show a change in the chain of title for whenever does a title search. 

So by recording a satisfaction of mortgage, it shows in the public records there’s no longer a lien, and they usually state that the debt has been paid in full. Certainly if you do pay your mortgage off, you’ll want to obtain the promissory note and ask that it be paid because it is considered sometimes a negotiable instrument so that’s important to have. But the satisfaction of mortgage indicates that there’s no lien on the property and does indicate that the lender has probably been paid in full. Hopefully you have a satisfaction of mortgage that you need to record, but if you have any questions about it, give me a call at 727-847-2288. 

Thank you.  

Video Summary

What is a partition action? That’s the name of a lawsuit where you want to force the sale of property that you have an interest in.  So if you only have a very small interest, say usually it’s a half interest or a quarter interest, and it’s usually a family matter where the family has inherited a piece of property from mom or dad and we have two or three sisters and they can’t seem to agree on what to do with the property. So one of them decides, “Well, I want to force sister out of the house since she’s living there and she’s not taking care of it and I just want my money.”

They then contact an attorney and say, “What can I do about that?” And I say, “Well, you can file a partition action.” And a partition action says that you have an interest in the property.  You have to name all the other people who have an interest in the property and say that you want the property sold.  And then there’s two ways to do it, you can either have it sold just like a foreclosure sale by the clerk’s office with an auction, although usually that doesn’t bring a very good price, or you can ask to have it be sold at what they call a private sale and that’s where you usually have a realtor sell the property.

So with a partition action, you ask that it be a private sale and then have a special magistrate appointed, which is usually a local attorney who then takes care of listing the property, and then once he has a contract, petitions the court for the courts approval of the contract and then he can sell the property and doesn’t need the signatures of all of the participants in that he is directed to sell the property. And so he sells the property and then divides up the money to everyone’s particular interest. 

In addition to being able to get your percentage share of that money, you can assert that you have what they call a special equity. Let’s say that you’ve been paying all the taxes on the property for the past several years and the other owners of the property haven’t contributed.  So you can assert that you have a special equity in the proceeds.  Also, a little tougher situation is when one of the owners is living on the property, the other owners can assert that they want a reasonable rental value for their share of the proceeds.

So it’s a little bit complicated as far as sorting out who gets the money.  But the partition action allows one of the property owners to force the sale of the property.  And I find that it’s a very effective tool in getting the people to negotiate some sort of buyout or getting the property sold.  So if you need to get some property sold and you can’t get along with the brothers and sisters or the co-owners, well, give me a call at 727-847-2288 and we’ll file a partition action. 

Thank you.