Can a foreclosure of a rental unit be an excuse for the tenant to stop paying the rent to the owner being foreclosed? This question and several other related questions was answered by an influential appellate court in Florida this week and it gives much needed guidance to Realtors, landlords and
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10/27/2012
The short sale addendum is evolving again - this time the Florida Association of Realtors has done an excellent job of fixing the shortfalls of their previous two versions that were harshly criticized by me when they were published. Key elements of the "fix" that came out in September 2012 inclu
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10/07/2012
Quiet Title schemes to eliminate mortgages took a hit Tuesday when the Florida Attorney General filed an Injunction and Declaratory Judgment action against one of the Florida perpetrators, seeking to seize their assets and return to the defrauded homeowners the thousands of dollars obtained by fa
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09/26/2012
The Florida Attorney General today shut down a firm that was mentioned in our blog last week. The concept of a land trust interfering with the title or prosecution of the foreclosure action has been long questioned - but desperate homeowners paid thousands of dollars to this and other firms to h
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09/26/2012
ALERT - ALERT - THE FLORIDA ATTORNEY GENERAL YESTERDAY OBTAINED AN INJUCTION AGAINST A FIRM TOUTING ELIMINATION OF THE MORTGAGE BY USING LAND TRUST SCHEMES. SEE THE NEWS RELEASE AND A COPY OF THE COMPLAINT. The issue of Quiet Title lawsuits brought by borrowers to invalidate their mortgages is g
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09/22/2012
Real Estate Agents and Brokers should be aware of a scam in which they are being unknowingly recruited. It involves fake cashier’s checks from what seems like a qualified buyer and an easy and fat commission check. The buyer finds the real estate agent for the purchase of a home and is asked to
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08/17/2012
In 2012 I have been seeing increasing incidents of real estate agents scamming homeowners in distress. Often this is an agent thinking they are doing legitimate work for a fee. As homeowner distress continues and lenders are still carrying defaulted mortgages on their books with those mortgages
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08/11/2012
Is it allowed to have a closing agent pay the commission to someone other than the licensed real estate broker on the transaction? The title company that I have owned for almost 30 years, Automated Land Title Company, does plenty of closings in Martin, Palm Beach and Broward and Miami-Dade Cou
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07/01/2012
When the Hernando County Clerk of Court decided to sue Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac this past week, it made me think “it’s about time”. One basis for the suit is that Fannie and Freddie enjoy an exemption from paying the documentary stamp tax on transfers of REO real estate, but that exemption is
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06/24/2012
In a somewhat surprising revelation discovered by one of our clients, PNC Bank decided to take a payment from a savings bank account in the name of the borrower's 15 year old daughter, on which a parent (the borrower) was the custodian. The payment was for a home equity loan - not a traditional
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06/06/2012
