Over time, most of us accumulate a variety of important legal documents. Birth certificates, vehicle titles, social security cards, wills, deeds to real estate, life insurance policies, tax returns and other various records begin to pile up. Some of these can be easily replaced. For others, the original holds special legal value and should be kept secure.
Tag Archives: Real Estate
Legal-Ease: Selling a house
Selling a house comes with a set of steps to be followed by the sellers and buyers. On the seller side, certain forms must be completed as mandated by the state that pertain to defects in the property. Buyers must submit their own reports, as a formal “offer.” Other formal steps must be followed, and certain conditions may create more steps depending on government law.
Legal-Ease: Co-owning and separating real estate
A “partition” is the specific type of lawsuit designed for splitting up co-owned real estate. But you can avoid this lawsuit by managing co-ownership with a few other options. Creating an LLC, a limited liability company, may not seem like it has much to do with real estate but it will help establish guidelines for multiple owners. A shared ownership agreement can also be used to manage conflict.
Legal-Ease: Do I need title insurance?
When purchasing real estate, public records are searched to confirm who owns the parcel of property and if there are any liens or assessments on the property. This process is called a title search. Anyone can perform a title search, and when a title search is done by someone who is not an attorney, the recorded instruments identified that could affect the property’s ownership or use are listed in a title report. The best protection to be sure that the property has no use or ownership issues is title insurance.
Legal-Ease: Water and sewer service for your new house
When building a new home, water and sewer services are pretty important pieces to have in place early. If the land you choose to build your home on is adjacent to public water and public sanitary sewer lines, some of the initial hurdles are already out of the way. If the land is not near water and sewer service lines, a water source needs to be found, such as a well or a pond. The biggest hurdle, however, is sanitary service. There are strict regulations surrounding sanitary sewer systems, and it’s up to local health departments to fill in the regulations’ gaps.
Legal-Ease: Buying and selling houses
If you’ve bought or sold a home, you know that there’s a giant amount of paperwork involved in the transaction. In the years before the 2008-2010 mortgage crisis, many lenders were duped with fake identifies of buyers or fabricated financial statements. As a result, the amount of paperwork involved with buying and selling a home skyrocketed after the mortgage crisis.
Since the mortgage crisis, most home loan closings involve several identity checks, multiple confirmations of financial status and many other checks and balances to ensure that the deal is legitimate.
Legal-Ease: What is title work?
When you’re in the process of purchasing a home, it’s likely that the lender will “order the title work” before the sale is final. “Title work” refers to the process of reviewing and analyzing public records and other documents to confirm ownership as well as uncover liens and mortgages. There is no required licensing for someone to be able to find and compile all documents recorded that relate to a property. However, only a licensed attorney can give an “opinion” on title.
Legal-Ease: Three tips for underground utility agreements
If you own land, it’s likely that at some point you will be approached by either a utility company or an entity related to the government asking to install a buried water, sewer, gas or other line, tile or pipe. Usually the government or utility company requests for the permanent right to use a geographic area under the ground.
Legal-Ease: do I need a survey?
Transferring ownership of land can be time consuming, costly and complicated. While surveying in the early days of our country was done with less precision than today, the various uses of a piece of property might still necessitate that a new survey be conducted.
Legal-Ease: Helping others with real estate sales
While it isn’t illegal for someone to sell real estate themselves, it is illegal if someone sells real estate and takes a commission without being a licensed real estate agent.