Video Summary

Do I need an attorney to evict a tenant?  Well, the answer to that is no, you don’t if you know how to evict them.  Usually, you evict tenants because they haven’t paid the rent, and that starts by the landlord giving the tenant a three-day notice.  A three-day notice is spelled out in the Florida statutes, and it can only be for rent.  So if you’re going to do the eviction yourself, you need to look up that notice and deliver it to the tenant and give them three days from the date that you deliver the notice.  You don’t count the day you give it to them, and then you start counting the days.  You can’t count Saturday or Sunday or a legal holiday, and after the three days have expired and they haven’t paid the rent or vacated, you’re then in a position to file a complaint for eviction, and that’s where you can try and find the law suit or complaint.  I think there’s some forms out at the law library or whatever, and you can complete those and basically attach the notice to them saying that they haven’t paid the rent and that they owe you the money, and then you can file that in court.

And then after that, you then have to see if they file a response.  If they do file some response, the judge will then usually set a hearing to determine the amount of rents owed, and you have to appear in court.  Sometimes it just sits there and nothing happens, and that’s whenever you get frustrated or need to talk to a lawyer, or you go to a hearing and the judge doesn’t evict them and sends you on your way.  So at that point, you probably do need a lawyer, and then we’ll have to look at your handy work to see whether or not – how good a lawyer you are.

So no, you don’t need a lawyer if you know what you’re doing.  Some landlords who have multiple properties are a little pro at it and so that they’ve been doing it by themselves for some time, whereas if this is the first time that you’ve tried to evict a tenant, you probably need to go ahead and hire a lawyer and then copy what he does so that the next time you’ll be able to do it ’cause hopefully he’ll make it look easy for you.

So no, you don’t need a lawyer.  But if you do need one, well, give me a call at 727-847-2288.

Video Summary

Can I remove an easement from my property?  Well, that’s really a good question, and easement law is a complicated area of law.  An easement, first let’s define what that is.  It means that someone owns the property, and then someone else has the right to use it for a particular purpose.  So you have the burdened property, which is the person who owns it, and then you have the benefited property or a benefited person who has a right to use your property for particular purposes.  If they’re private easements such as utility easements, things such as that, or usually you have ingress and egress easements, meaning a way to get in and out of property, those cannot be eliminated from your title unless you own both the burdened property, where the easement is situated, as well as the benefited property.  So an easement going from Parcel A to Parcel B, you can’t eliminate that private easement.  However, if you own both A and B, well, then you can extinguish the easement, or the easement goes away since it’s no longer needed since you own both parcels.

Now, if you’re talking about an easement or a road right of way that the public – that’s shown on a plat or something like that with the county, you can petition the county to vacate a road right of way if – that’s really not an easement.  It’s usually a road right of way, and the county can issue a – if they decide to do so, can issue an order or a – well, whatever the Board of County Commissioners issues to vacate the road right of way.  And then the road is then – one half of it goes to each property owner on each side of the road.  But that takes a petition, and be sure that you don’t have anybody else out there that could object to it.  So it’s difficult to get rid of private easements.

Road right of ways can be vacated if they’re basically abandoned or have never been used, such as an old plat.  So if you’ve got an easement across your property, well, you need to see who it’s benefiting and possibly be able to get rid of it that way, but that’s most difficult to do.

Anybody have any other question about easements, well, give me a call at 727-847-2288.

Video Summary

Do I still own my property if I have filed bankruptcy and have included the lien or the amount that I owe in the bankruptcy estate?  The answer is, yes, you still own the property even after you’re discharged from bankruptcy.  The bankruptcy simply discharges the debt, meaning that you no longer have personal liability for the promissory note.  The lender still has a mortgage against the property.  However, they must foreclose that mortgage in order to divest you from the title.  So, you should not just walk away from the property even after a foreclosure in that you can retain the property until they complete a foreclosure action.  So, you still own it until such time as they’ve completed a foreclosure action against your property.

If you have any questions about ownership of your property after you’ve filed a bankruptcy action, give me a call at (727) 847-2288.

Video Summary

What is a balloon mortgage?  That certainly is a strange word to use, but it is a legally-defined term, and it means a mortgage brand or is a payment that is twice the amount of the regular payments that are paid.

Best way to illustrate this is let’s say that you have a $100,000.00 mortgage, and you set the payments out so that it would be paid out over a period of 30 years.  So let’s say the payments are $500.00 a month, and we won’t go into the interest rate, but you pay $500.00 a month for five years, and then the note says it becomes due and payable in five years.

Well, you haven’t paid off the $100,000.00 in the five-year period so after five years you’ll still be owed probably $60 or $70 or $80,000.00 on the $100,000.00, and that’s called the balloon payment.

So that’s the illustration or an example of a balloon payment, which is whenever you have regular periodic payments, and then you have a very large payment that becomes due and payable.  Most of your commercial mortgages these days also set up a balloon payment.  They spread your mortgage payments out over a 15- or 20-year period, but they say the loan becomes due and payable after three or five years, and certainly if you have investors involved, that can be the case with residential property whenever you have owner financing.

If you use a balloon mortgage on a residential property, and it’s a second mortgage, then the statutes provide that you must have certain bold-faced language at the top of the mortgage and also above the signature page indicating this is a balloon mortgage and setting forth the amount of the balloon payment, and that’s so it’s basic consumer protection type situation so someone can’t say, “Well, oh, I thought I’d have this thing paid off in five years.”  Well, if there’s a principal balance above where you sign it, well, you’ve got to sort of be blind in one eye and can’t see out of the other if you can see that the principal balance is not going to be paid off when the loan becomes due and payable since they set forth a balloon payment.  There are some penalties if this language is not on the second mortgage on a residential transaction.

So that’s a balloon mortgage.  If you have any questions about it, well, give me a call at 727-847-2288.  Thank you.

Video Summary

If I have a homestead exemption in Florida, can my spouse hold a homestead exception in another state?  The answer is, “No,” because if you’re husband and wife, the property appraiser determines that it is a family and therefore you’re saying that the family has their homestead or permanent residence in Florida if you have a homestead exemption.  Whenever you sign the application for homestead, you say that you don’t have an exemption in another state and that goes for your spouse.

It’s even more difficult whenever people are going through a divorce proceeding and they’re not divorced and they’re separated for some time and they’re not going through a divorce proceeding, whether or not both spouses can obtain a homestead exemption.  I know that our local property appraiser, Mike Wells in Pasco County, is really tough on this and in fact investigates any number of people who apply for a homestead exemption to determine whether or not they have homestead in another state.  If they do, then he slaps a homestead lien against their property for all the exemptions they received.

I don’t know how other property appraisers are as far as investigating this, but if your spouse is getting homestead in another state, then I don’t suggest you try and get homestead in Florida because if you get caught, the homestead exemption penalties are quite severe.  He puts a lien against your property for all these back-due taxes.  So I would talk to the property appraiser of you do want to try and do that and ask them before you apply for a homestead exemption here in Florida in your name.  If you have any other questions, give me a call at 847-2288.  Thank you.