As a business owner, choosing the right commercial property and negotiating the terms of a lease can directly influence your bottom line. From the items which are included in your rent, to the freedom you are given to customize your space, it is vital to understand the exact terms set out in a lease agreement. Once a contract has been signed, disputes which arise can be difficult to resolve. In ...
Residential short-sale transactions have been commonplace in Arizona for at least the last six years. Many homeowners that have sought to short sale their residential properties have expressed a great deal of frustration. This frustration has been caused by: (1) the length of time it has taken to obtain approval from the lender; (2) the lenders' repeated requests for the same financial information ...
Hogan v. Washington Mutual Bank Can a borrower/property owner defeat a non-judicial foreclosure sale (trustee's sale) by demanding that the lender prove that it is the holder of the underlying promissory note? In Hogan v. Washington Mutual Bank the Arizona Supreme Court answered that question with a resounding "No." In Hogan, the borrower defaulted on the loans for two properties. The lenders, ...
Southwest Super Lawyers Rising Star Press Release - Adam Decker Selection Adam Decker has been named to the Southwest Super Lawyers Rising Stars list as one of the top up-and-coming attorneys in Arizona for 2012. Each year, no more than 2.5 percent of the lawyers in the state receive this honor. The selection for this respected list is made by the research team at Super Lawyers. Super Lawyers, a ...
5 Next Steps When The Appraisal Comes In Too Low We recently came upon a very informative article about what steps a buyer can take when an appraisal comes in too low. In short, those steps are: 1. Appeal errors or bad comps to the appraiser. 2. Ask for a second opinion. 3. Rengotiate the terms of the purchase contract. 4. Pay the difference or split the difference. 5. Change lenders. For a more ...
42% of Arizona home sales are distressed properties.* A new analysis shows that more than 42 percent of all Arizona home sales last year were either foreclosures or in some stage of foreclosure. That's an increase of 12 percent from 2010 but a slight drop from the number in 2009. The report released Thursday by foreclosure tracking firm RealtyTrac shows the percentage of distressed sales in the ...
Arizona Mortgage Settlement - How Will Settlement Dollars Get To Homeowners?* On February 9, 2012, an historic joint state-federal settlement was reached between Arizona and 49 other states, the federal government and the country’s five largest residential mortgage loan servicers—Ally/GMAC, Bank of America, Citibank, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo. The settlement will provide as much as $25 ...
The Arizona Court of Appeals recently expanded Arizona's anti-deficiency statute governing the pursuit of a deficiency following the foreclosure of a deed of trust in the case of M&I Marshall & Ilsley Bank v. Mueller (link provided). Most home loans are secured by deeds of trust in Arizona. When a homeowner quits making payments, the lender may foreclose on the home through an auction via a ...
Schern Richardson Finter Decker announces the formation and approval from the Arizona Department of Real Estate of the Finter Decker School of Real Estate. Stay tuned for announcements regarding upcoming schedules and courses.
The LA Times reports that: [m]ajor banks may be forced to let severely delinquent homeowners sell their houses for less than the loan amounts owed as part of a broad settlement of federal and state investigations into botched foreclosure paperwork, according to government officials involved in the negotiations. The requirement to allow so-called short sales would be in addition to forcing mortgage ...
Sales of previously owned homes dropped 9.6% in February and prices fell to their lowest level since 2002, reflecting a continued slump in the U.S. real estate market. The National Assn. of Realtors on Monday said home resales dropped to an annual rate of 4.88 million from an upwardly revised 5.4 million in January. The data is seasonally adjusted. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch expected sales ...
The W.P. Carey School of Business at ASU recently reported that in January and February 2011, foreclosure sales in the Phoenix area shot up to 43% of all transactions that occurred in those months. That rise is up from 30% in the final months of 2010. Out of 8,500 single-family home resale transactions in February, more than 3,600 were foreclosures. The median price for a single-family home in ...
The goal in interpreting a statute is to find and give effect to the intent of the legislature. Mail Boxes, Etc., U.S.A. v. Indus. Comm'n, 181 Ariz. 119, 121, 888 P.2d 777, 779 (1995). In determining the legislative intent, the court must first look to the language of the statute. Canon Sch. Dist. No. 50 v. W.E.S. Constr. Co., 177 Ariz. 526, 529, 869 P.2d 500, 503 (1994). If the statutory language ...
Adam Decker and Aaron Finter will be presenting current legal trends in the real estate law at Great American Title Agency, Inc. on April 1, 2011, at 11:00am for a luncheon. Please coordinate with Schern Richardson Finter Decker, if you plan on attending. We would love to see you there. Email Adam at adam@finterdecker.com or Aaron at aaron@finterdecker.com if you plan on attending.
The Federal Trade Commission recently imposed a new rule on those companies providing mortgage relief to homeowners through short sales, loan modifications, and other mortgage relief options. The FTC issued the Mortgage Assistance Relief Services (MARS), Rule 16 C.F.R. 322, to prevent consumer abuses by sham companies claiming that, for a fee, they will negotiate with the homeowners' lender to ...
Residential short-sale transactions have been commonplace in Arizona for at least the last six years. Many homeowners that have sought to short sale their residential properties have expressed a great deal of frustration. This frustration has been caused by: (1) the length of time it has taken to obtain approval from the lender; (2) the lenders' repeated requests for the same financial information ...