REALsmart

Reader, I built something new, and before I tell the wider world about it, I want you to try it first. It is called Georgia Property Fraud Watch, and the link to it is cherylking.me/fraud-watch. It is free. It takes about ten minutes to build your plan — completing the registrations it points you to takes longer — and you leave with a personal, printable plan for watching a Georgia property for fraudulent filings. Why I built it Here is one story I have heard recently, one of many. It is the...

Reader, 🎃 Back from the Dead The trouble started with a recorded easement. The buyers learned about it during the transaction and didn’t want to proceed with the easement, described by a title attorney as the worst easement they've ever read, attached to their property. The sellers proposed a solution that involved giving the neighbor the property which would leave the buyers with less acreage. The buyers had limited money, needed somewhere to live, and couldn’t afford to waste time. They...

Reader, How Will Your Buyers Take Title? Two buyers, not married, buying a house together. Only one of them qualifies for the loan. At closing, the deed vests title in both of them as joint tenants with right of survivorship. Three years later, the borrower dies. The survivor now owns the whole house, and the borrower’s estate still owes the loan. The survivor has every reason to keep the payments current, since the lender can foreclose if they stop. But now two unrelated families are tied to...

Reader, No Will, No Authority: What to Ask Before You List an Estate Property “Dad passed in the spring. My brother and I want to list the house next week.” Nobody has been appointed, and the probate court hasn’t issued anything. Georgia doesn’t require court permission to list, but the brokerage engagement they’d sign says the seller has title and authority to sell. Right now, neither of them has either one. How Often Death Puts a House on the Market About 3.07 million people died in the...

Reader, 🛠️ Repair Stips That Actually Protect Your Client A Promise to Fix Is Only as Good as the Words That Describe It A repair request is a contract term, and what it leaves out, the seller gets to decide. Buyers of a Roswell home learned that in Meyer v. Waite (Ga. Ct. App. 2004). After their inspection, the parties signed an amendment that cut the price by $4,000 and required the sellers to repair 42 items. Two of them: "repair or replace worn gutters," and "caulk/seal around all doors,...

Reader, Why a Buyer Might Ask for a Seller Contingency Before You Decide This Is Overkill Almost no one writes a Seller contingency into a residential offer. Read what follows and you may find yourself thinking it overcomplicates a deal that would probably close fine without it, or that none of it applies to how you do business. In a lot of circumstances, you’d be right. This isn’t an argument that every offer needs one. It’s a look at an alternative way to handle a specific set of deals, and...

Reader, Building a Buyer-Side Stipulation A buyer plans to add a pool once the family settles in, but nobody thinks about it before the offer goes out. Once Due Diligence starts, Buyer's agent orders a survey and calls the HOA's management company, and finds out both will take longer than Due Diligence has left to run. The surveyor is backed up for weeks, and nobody will know whether the pool clears every setback line and easement on the lot until that survey comes back. The HOA's...

Reader, Check Before You Draft: There May Already be a GAR Form For That Special circumstances come up when the Agreement is being written and again when the parties negotiate during Due Diligence. Maybe the buyer wants the seller to leave the above-ground pool—or wants to make absolutely sure it is gone before closing. Maybe a storage container must be removed, outdoor furniture must remain, or the seller has agreed to complete some unusual work or provide a credit. GAR has an exhibit or...

Reader, The Importance of the Legal Description A signed contract arrives at the closing attorney's office. Both parties signed it and everyone involved thinks the deal is buttoned up. It gets opened by the pre-closer just like every other file. What property are they selling / buying? Nothing is attached. The email that came with the file asks: can you pull a deed and add it? This is not rare, and the flippant way it happens almost daily misses what's at stake. It puts both the buyer and the...