The Courts Giveth and the Courts Taketh Away. A few months ago, a number of California landlords and their attorneys had the unusual sense that the courts had indeed given them something. On October 1, 2015 a decision was filed in the case of Boston LLC v. Juan Juarez (Appellate Division, Los Angeles County Superior […]
Buyers who qualify for FHA and/or VA mortgages are frequently shut out of purchasing opportunities because there are many condominium developments that have not obtained approval from the FHA or VA. A recently-approved law in California aims to help rectify that situation. On Wednesday, August 12, Governor Jerry Brown signed into law Assembly Bill 596 […]
There has been a fair amount of celebrating in the real estate industry over a recent Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling that upheld the independent contractor classification of real estate salespersons. However, not only is the decision in Monell v. Boston Pads a rather narrow one, based on an unusual circumstance in that state’s law, but […]
A California Homeowner Association (HOA) adopted a rule that homeowners who rented out their homes could not do so for periods of less than seven days. Moreover, the HOA imposed an annual fee of $325 on owners who rent out their homes. The purpose of the fee was to defray, at least partially, the extra […]
Sometimes when everything goes right we have trouble accepting that fact. Perhaps nowhere is this phenomenon more clearly illustrated than in the case where a seller receives a good offer right away. The annals of real estate are well stocked with stories of sellers who refused to take a good, but not perfect, first offer, […]
When a condominium is sold, who should pay the cost of providing the buyer with various HOA (Homeowner Association) documents, the buyer or the seller? The purchase and sale of a condominium unit can often be more complicated, involve more paperwork, and have proportionately higher expenses than the sale of a free-standing single family home. […]
Now that the market has slowed a bit – i.e. returned to normal— contingency offers are more common and, I would argue, more palatable than they have been during the past few years. By contingency offer I mean an offer to purchase that comes from a buyer who still has to sell his house […]
Many times, in the course of reviewing transaction files, I will read that an agent has recommended to the buyer that he or she should have the home inspected by a licensed home inspector. While one has to appreciate the earnestness of such advice, it is nonetheless at least a trifle amusing. This is because […]
Assembly Bill 2018 (Bocanegra) is quickly working its way through the California legislature in Sacramento. The bill deals with the use of team names and fictitious business names in the real estate business. The bill is the result of collaborative work by The California Association of Realtors® (CAR) and The California Bureau of Real Estate […]
California’s standard Residential Purchase Agreement (RPA), produced by the California Association of Realtors® (CAR) is undergoing a major revamping. While the changes being made do not represent a radical transformation or restructuring of the nature of the agreement, there are still many, many changes. Some of them are only slight alterations in wording; others are […]
