real estate laws

What Does Falling Out of Escrow Mean?

What happens when you fall out of escrow?What Does Falling Out of Escrow Mean

When your real estate listing goes from “active” to “pending,” it means you have accepted an offer, but that the sale has not yet closed. During the time your home is pending, a lot of things happen. Having your home loan application denied by the lender impacts your escrow and purchase plans in a few ways. A loan that falls out of escrow does not necessarily mean your deal is dead, but the process of getting the application back on a track likely will delay your closing. An extension of escrow, a seller notice to perform and cancellation of the contract are some options, depending on your specific escrow and the loan issues you are facing.

Example

A common scenario is when a buyer fails to qualify for financing ultimately is not approved for their mortgage. Although mortgage lenders pre-approve a lot of buyers, circumstances can change. For example, the buyer might lose his or her job, accrue new debt, or do something that negatively impacts his or her credit score. Perhaps you have an executed purchase agreement and escrow is opened and the buyer was pre-qualified by a lender but not fully loan approved. Pre-qualification can be done over the phone with all of the pertinent information necessary to qualify and pull a credit report.

A professional home inspection is part of the real estate process. It allows the buyer to see if there is anything grossly wrong with the home, and gives them the ability to walk away without losing their earnest money or deposit. Home inspections can reveal...

Capital Gains and Buying a Home Out of State

Capital Gains and Buying a Home Out of State

What are capital gains?

Capital gains are the profits you make when you sell a stock, real estate or other taxable assets that increased in value while you owned it. The capital gains tax is based on that profit. The long-term capital gains tax rate is typically zero, 15 or 20 percent, depending on your tax bracket. Capital gains taxes apply to the sale of stocks, real estate, mutual funds, and other capital assets. The tax is based on the profit you made or the price you sold it for minus the price you paid, and how long you held onto the asset.

The long-term capital gains tax rate, for assets held for more than one year, depends upon your taxable income. Short-term capital gains rates are higher and are based on your income tax bracket. A capital gains tax is a tax you pay on the profit made from selling an investment.

You don’t have to pay capital gains tax until you sell your investment. The tax paid covers the amount of profit — the capital gain — you made between the purchase price and sale price of the stock, real estate or other assets. When you sell, your gain (or loss) is referred to as “realized.” 

How much you pay in taxes depends in part upon whether you made a short-term or long-term capital gain on your investment, and each is taxed in different ways.

Short-term capital gains are taxed as ordinary income, such as the income tax you pay on your salary, at your standard federal income tax rate. This tends to be a higher rate than for long-term capital gains taxes, which are based on defined tax brackets that are adjusted each year for inflation.

Capital gains and losses are calculated by subtracting...

What Exactly is Foreclosure?

How To Make Your Home Safe And Secure For Your Senior Years

When a homeowner has ceased paying their monthly mortgage payments for several months the lender has the power to begin the foreclosure process on the home. This process may take months and could be very stressful and emotional if you are going through it.

What exactly is a foreclosure?

The definition of foreclosure is when a lender takes control of a property after the borrower has missed several mortgage payments in a row.

When purchasing a home, a borrower takes out a mortgage and agrees to a deal with their lender or bank lending out money. The lender gives the borrower money upfront to purchase the home and expects the borrower to sign a contract and agree to pay off that amount of money plus interest over a specific amount of time.

If you are unable to make payments and begin missing the date deadline to make the payments the bank can foreclose on the property and sell it as a way to compensate for missed funds on the money they lent out.

How does foreclosure work?

In the contract that is signed when you agree to take on a mortgage loan, there is a specified amount of money that was borrowed as well as a clearly communicated interest rate and the amount of expected monthly payment to pay back the loan.

Simply occupying a home does not mean that you fully and legally own it outright. When a homeowner has a mortgage technically the lending party owns a stake in the property until you make the final mortgage payment.

If you have missed several of the monthly agreed-upon payments a lender is allowed to begin the foreclosure process and there are two main ways in which they can carry out a foreclosure. These include a judicial foreclosure where...

Mobilehomes: Exemptions from Rent Control Disallowed Until 2025

The exemption from local mobilehome rent control laws for leases of 12 months or more is disallowed temporarily until January 1, 2025.

Previously, the law exempted a rental agreement in a mobilehome park that is in excess of 12 months’ duration, and that meets other specified requirements, from local rent control ordinances.

This new law prohibits the above-described exemption from rent control in mobilehome parks for rental agreements from applying to a rental agreement entered into on or after February 13, 2020. These provisions are repealed on January 1, 2025.

Assembly Bill 2782 is codified as Civil Code Sections 798.17 and 798.56, and Government Code Sections 65863.7 and 66427.4.  Effective January 1, 2021.

...

COVID-19 Rent Moratorium Rules Extended Statewide | Mobilehomes

The COVID-19 Tenant Relief Act is applied to mobilehomes in mobilehome parks.

Applies all of the protections of the COVID-19 Tenant Relief Act of 2020 to persons who rent space in a mobilehome park. See the summary of this law above in under the heading Landlord/Tenant: "COVID-19 Tenant Protection Act of 2020"

The COVID-19 Tenant Relief Act of 2020 extends tenant rental relief protections to the Mobile Home Residency law by defining "landlord" to include an owner of a mobilehome park and an owner of a mobilehome park space or lot, and requiring that any notice to pay rent or quit for a mobilehome renting space in a mobile home park comply with all of the notice rules, including provision of a 15-day notice, statutory advisories and a blank declaration per the Tenant Relief Act. The UD process would adhere to the all of the same procedures under the Tenant Relief Actc with exceptions that are specific to mobilehome eviction such as, for example, that a UD may not be filed for at least 60 days after service of a notice to pay rent or quit.

These provisions were part of a larger bill Assembly Bill 3088 and are codified as Civil Code Section 798.56 and Code of Civil Procdure Sections 1179.01 through 1179.07.  Effective immediately on August 31, 2020, as urgency legislation.

Read more laws here

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Termination of Tenancy Right for Crime Victims Expanded : Landlord/Tenant

This law extends existing provisions of law authorizing a tenant to terminate a tenancy when the tenant or a household member is a victim of domestic violence or elder abuse to also include a crime that caused bodily injury or death, the exhibition, drawing, brandishing, or use of a firearm or other deadly weapon or instrument, or that included the use of force or threat of force against the victim, and expands these provisions to apply if an immediate family member of the tenant is a victim of an eligible crime.

This law extends the existing law as follows:

  1. Adds a crime that caused bodily injury or death, that included the exhibition, drawing, brandishing, or use of a firearm or other deadly weapon or instrument, or that included the use of force against the victim or threat of force against the victim to the existing list of eligible crimes for which a tenant may terminate the lease if the tenant or a household member is a victim.
  2. Authorizes a tenant to terminate a lease if an immediate family member was a victim of an eligible crime.
  3. Authorizes any other form of documentation that reasonably verifies that the eligible crime or act occurred to be given to the landlord.
  4. Adds a victim of violent crime advocate to definition of qualified third party that may sign documentation to be provided to a landlord.
  5. Requires the tenant to provide a specified written statement to the landlord if the tenant is terminating tenancy because an immediate family member is a victim of an eligible crime, the tenant did not live in the same household as the immediate family member at the time of the eligible crime, and no part of the crime occurred within the dwelling unit or within 1,000 feet of the dwelling unit of the tenant.
  6. Requires the notice to terminate the tenancy to be given within 180 days of the date that the newly added eligible crimes occurred.
  7. Prohibits a landlord from requiring a tenant who...

Unlawful Detainer (UD) Shielding : Landlord / Tenant

In part urgency legislation that took effect immediately on August 31, 2020.  Two laws: One extends UD Shielding for UD actions based on COVID rental debt and the other further expands UD shielding in general.

Until February 1, 2021 for any UD action based on COVID rental debt (owing from March 4, 2020 to January 31, 2021) public access generally to UD filing is foreclosed even when the plaintiff prevails in an action within 60 days of filing.

Beginning January 1, 2021, public access to UD fillings is permitted when a judgment against all defendants has been entered within 60 days.

In 2017, a law came into effect which restricted the general public access to unlawful detainer filings to the circumstance where the landlord prevailed within 60 days of filing.  The effect of shielding public access to UD filings was to impair the usefulness of credit reports in spotting a tenant with a history of being evicted through the unlawful detainer process.

This new law expands this public access limitation even further by eliminating public access even in those limited circumstances when the unlawful detainer action was filed between March 4, 2020, and January 31, 2021, and is based on the nonpayment of rent. It does, however, contain a special exception for the news media to pull unlawful detainer data for the purpose of gathering "newsworthy facts" by a reporter or other persons in the press.

Additionally, existing law allows access to case records filed in an unlawful detainer action to any person 60 days after the complaint has been filed if the plaintiff prevails in the action within 60 days of the filing of the complaint.

This new law,...

Rent Cap and Just Cause Eviction : Landlord/Tenant

Urgency legislation that took effect immediately on August 31, 2020.  Clarifies permissible rent increases under statewide rent cap law.  Clarifies the exemptions for a duplex.

Eliminates ambiguities under the Tenant Protection Act of 2019 as to exactly how to calculate the consumer price index for the applicable area -- giving the owner greater assurance that a given rent increase is legally permissible.  Clarifies that the exemption for a duplex applies to a single structure containing two separate dwelling units.

Under the Tenant Protection Act of 2019 (commonly referred to as the statewide rent cap and just cause eviction law or "AB 1482"), a landlord is permitted to raise rent by 5% plus inflation as indicated by the applicable Consumer Price Index.  But AB 1482 is ambiguous in describing precisely which Consumer Price Index ("CPI") measurement can be used.  These ambiguities are as follows:

1)  As passed AB 1482 did not specify which CPI measure is applicable such as the CPI-U for all Urban Consumers or some other measure such as the CPI-E or CPI-W.

2)  AB 1482 required that the CPI numbers for specified metropolitan areas rely on the CPI from April.

However, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics ("USBLS") does not include April numbers for San Diego, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

3)  AB 1482 prescribed the use of the CPI for the "region" where the property is located as published by the USBLS.

However, the only "regional" number it publishes is for the "West Region" which covers the 13 westernmost states.

4)  AB 1482 is ambigous as to whether the CPI for a given metropolitan area covers every property within the county described.

5)  AB 1482 was silent on rounding up or down the CPI

6)  Any rent increase would be delayed...

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