An easement is a legally binding agreement which allows an individual or company access to another person’s property for a specific use. These agreements are common in situations such as when two homes share the use of a driveway or when a utility pipeline runs through a home’s backyard. In both cases, even though the land may be owned by a single person, another may have limited access to part of ...
As the great poet Robert Frost once wrote, good fences make good neighbors. In real estate law, this statement holds great relevance in regards to avoiding disputes related to property boundaries. Most of the time, commercial and residential property owners have a good understanding of where their property begins and ends and extend the same courtesy to their neighbors. Unfortunately, this ...
Purchasing and investing in land can seem like a pretty solid business strategy, no pun intended. After all, unless there is a plate-shifting earthquake, it isn’t going anywhere any time soon and people are always going to need it. But turning a profit isn’t as simple as making a land-grab and waiting for someone else to come along and want to use it. You need to have an eye for good land with a ...
With the price of real estate soaring, purchasing land may seem like a second-best option for the potential investor. In reality, investing in land is actually an excellent opportunity in the current economic climate, with trends showing that the average price of farmland is increasing at a far greater rate than that of property. Before you make the decision to invest, however, it is important you ...
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 ...
If you are searching for legal representation regarding a real estate transaction or dispute, choosing the best attorney for your situation can feel overwhelming. At Schern Richardson Finter Decker our team works to simplify this process by providing straightforward, effective, and personalized legal advocacy. We know that our clients are the most important part of our practice and that is why ...
The home looks picturesque – a quaint single-story piece in a nice neighborhood with a beautiful garden out front. The inside looks sharp and modern-contemporary and everything seems to be clean. Must be a dream that it is still on the market, right? You sit down with the realtor, sign all the paperwork, and before you know it, the property is yours. But everything turns upside-down the moment you ...
Can A Real Estate Agent's LLC Sign An Independent Contractor Agreement With A Broker? You may not know, but in Arizona, professional limited liability companies (LLC) or corporations (PC) are permitted to hold real estate licenses with the Arizona Department of Real Estate (ADRE). Therefore, a real estate agent can form a professional limited liability company or corporation and obtain a real ...
At Schern Richardson Finter Decker, our practice focuses primarily on real estate and commercial litigation matters. However, as a result of the downturn in the Arizona real estate market, real estate practitioners in Arizona increasingly find themselves assisting clients with issues related to taxation and bankruptcy. It has come to my attention that tax professionals are presently counseling ...
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 ...
Excerpts from "The Death of the McMansion" by Witold Rybczynski of Slate.com The U.S. housing market is going through an adjustment of historic proportions. Before 2006, when the housing slump commenced, American home builders regularly built as many as 2 million new houses annually, rarely less than a million. This amount was needed to keep up with new household formation, immigration, homeowners ...
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.
High down payment requirements being proposed by federal regulatory agencies as part of the upcoming rulemaking under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act will unnecessarily burden homebuyers and significantly impede the economic and housing recovery, according to the National Association of Realtors®. Six agencies, including the Department of Housing and Urban ...
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 ...
While the long-term housing outlook is beginning to look up, 2011 is projected to be the peak year for foreclosures during this market cycle. Distressed homeowners who are on the brink of a short sale, loan modification or foreclosure should be aware that normally, any mortgage balance on a primary residence that is wiped out by one of these outcomes is taxed as what the IRS calls Cancellation of ...
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 ...
Can A Real Estate Agent's LLC Sign An Independent Contractor Agreement With A Broker? You may not know, but in Arizona, professional limited liability companies (LLC) or corporations (PC) are permitted to hold real estate licenses with the Arizona Department of Real Estate (ADRE). Therefore, a real estate agent can form a professional limited liability company or corporation and obtain a real ...