Archive for 'Real Estate Law'

Caution! Legislators At Work!

Legislature

With the New Year firmly underway, many of us are working hard at implementing our real estate investing goals for 2013.  There is however one group out there that may be trying to thwart you.  They generally get together at the beginning of every year and devise ways to make your job harder.  No I am not talking about your tenants, but about ...

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The Comprehensive Plan (Master Plan): A Primer for Real Estate Investors

master plan

Most real estate investors have heard of zoning and subdivision regulations and may even have a basic understanding of what they do and how they can impact their investments.  There is however another document that may be decades old guiding the drafting and implementation of those two land use controls, that is the comprehensive ...

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Tenant Screening: Avoiding Discrimination Lawsuits

fair housing and discrimination

Last week I discussed the importance of screening tenants.  I noted that tenant screening was perhaps the key to being a successful landlord.  This week I want to follow up on that article by discussing methods to screen your prospective tenants to avoid a discrimination lawsuit.

What is discrimination?
A quick Google search defines discrimination as “Recognition and understanding ...

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What Liability Do You Assume When You Allow Pets In Your Rental Property?

dog liability for landlords

There has been so much discussion on BiggerPockets about whether or not you should allow pets in your rental property. This is also a topic that comes up frequently at our REIA group.

Some folks feel very strongly (like I once did) that they always end up damaging the property, so they ...

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Ground Leases 101: A Financing Alternative

Despite the relative return of liquidity in the credit markets, many real estate owners and developers are still facing an uphill battle to obtain sufficient funding for their projects. One way to move that project from the drawing board to the construction site is eliminate the high property acquisition costs and turn to ground leasing as an alternative. Before you get started, here are a few issues to consider before signing the lease.

Don’t Be Fooled By The Name ...

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Avoid Mortgage Fraud: Don’t Let Your Buyers Request Land You in Trouble

mortgage fraud

It still amazes me how many people think it’s okay to skirt the “rules” when it comes to selling real estate. I am in the process of selling a property I bought and rehabbed over the last few months. Most of my properties are sold directly to investors as turn-key rentals, but this particular one ...

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Commonly Overlooked Lease Issues: Third Party Rights

This series is devoted to highlighting those often neglected lease provisions and prevailing on our landlord readers to give them a second look when crafting their contracts. Last month, we looked at the benefits of affirmatively addressing the, dare I say, not uncommon occurrence of a landlord default on their lease obligations and potential tenant remedies in such circumstances. Today we look at third party rights.

Third Party Rights: The Lender

Most commonly, when we talk about third party rights under ...

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Commonly Overlooked Lease Issues (Part 1)

They say the pen is mightier than the sword. And in this context, that pen has been put to paper to draft an impenetrable lease agreement… or so we hope. In an effort to embrace brevity, or perhaps to make their lease agreement more user friendly to the tenant, landlords often omit useful lease provisions. This series will be devoted to highlighting those often neglected provisions and prevailing upon our landlord readers to give them a second ...

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What’s in a [Deed] Name? An Exploration of Deeds and Warranties

Deed type is often a neglected negotiation point in transactional real estate, somewhere far after purchase price and the target closing date, but slightly before whether email notification is acceptable.  But the type of deed you receive from your seller can provide meaningful and long-lasting peace of mind (or angst) about the quality of title that you hold to your property. 

Understanding the Warranties

At their most basic, deed warranties obligate the seller to defend the buyer (read: litigate on the buyer’s ...

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