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Category Archives: Real Estate

Ghosts?

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Should the law require the seller of a house to disclose that a murder or suicide occurred there?  The Consumerist blog posed this question a few weeks ago, noting the Massachusetts law (G.L. ch. 93 §114) does not require such disclosure:
The fact or suspicion that real property may be or is psychologically impacted shall not be [...]

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Google Street View in the News

Friday, February 5, 2010

Vancouver property owners and an arbor service have been charged with illegal removal of trees from the owner’s property.  A Vancouver bylaw requires property owners receive a permit to remove trees greater than 20 cm in diameter, and the owners have been charged with the unpermitted removal of over 20 trees.  The penalty for each [...]

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Changed Contractual Expectations

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Say you purchase a brand-new $3 million house adjacent to a golf course in a luxury country-club development.  The developer requires all house purchasers to buy country club memberships for $175,000. You comply, relying on a clause of the club membership agreement that obligates the club to reimburse the membership acquisition fee in full, in [...]

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Missing Notes

Monday, March 2, 2009

Real estate mortgage foreclosure is pretty simple.  The borrower gives a promissory note to the lender to evidence the loan, the borrower fails to pay debt service when due, the lender accelerates the outstanding principal balance of the mortgage loan, obtains a court order to sell the real estate securing the loan, and auctions the [...]

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Malevolent Design

Friday, December 5, 2008

Weston, Florida. An Arvida development.  Broad pedestrian-hostile boulevards, gated communities, steroidal houses, trees, hedges, and artificial lakes screening homes from passing eyes.  Weston Town Center, the aesthetic pure Disneyworld, almost deserted at 1:00 PM.  Our airport cabbie, being helpful, told us that the Sawgrass Mills mall, “the third-largest mall in North America, the second largest [...]

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Foreclosure and vengeance

Friday, March 28, 2008

Today’s Wall Street Journal reports (subscription required) on a growing practice: foreclosing lenders and auction purchasers of foreclosed homes are paying the former owners cash to leave the properties without vandalizing them. The payments, which range from hundreds to thousands of dollars, are considered a “win-win” because they give the foreclosed owner some [...]

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Another environmental concern

Friday, March 28, 2008

Over the past decade law enforcement has cracked down on the production of methamphetamine, shutting over 100,000 homemade meth labs. Many of these labs were located in private homes. During production methamphetamine residue lodges in carpets, upholstery, drapes and other surfaces. When these former meth labs are sold unwitting buyers are [...]

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