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That's the question I asked, and answered, in my latest Estate Planning Law Report. Check it out in the recent news section of deconcinimcdonald.com and let me know what you think.
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The question is, what happens to a one-foot wide strip of property that remained in the ownership of the builder after construction of two attached houses on two lots on either side of the one-foot wide strip?
Pro tip: don’t buy the one-foot wide strip at the tax lien sale. Buyer beware. My Real Estate Law Update for December discussed Home Title Lock, and whether it really provides a needed service. You’ll find that Update in the news and events section of deconcinimcdonald.com.
Clark Howard makes the point that Home Title Lock doesn’t really sound like insurance. They say they will monitor your home title, alert you if anything happens, and assist you with documents if something does happen, but they don’t say that they will pay any money to cover any losses you might incur. This happened in France, so maybe I shouldn’t be concerned by it, but the idea that managers of a private company can be criminally prosecuted and jailed for firing, transferring, or demoting employees, because those business decisions allegedly led to some of those employees committing suicide, is alarming to me. Unless the managers personally abused the employees who committed suicide (which isn’t suggested by the news report; to the contrary, the term applied, “institutional harassment,” suggests the state couldn’t identify individual actors), how can employment decisions, no matter how harsh they may be for the employee financially, subject the corporate decision makers to jail time?
I saw a news item from KOLD-TV about the Tucson City Council being urged to modify its development code to prohibit front-yard swimming pools. Why? Because construction of the required safety wall around a front-yard pool would allegedly cause the property to no longer qualify for the historic property tax break. Why should anyone but the owner of the subject property care about that? Well apparently, if a large enough number of properties in a historically designated district no longer qualify, the district could lose the historic designation, which would mean that none of the properties in the district would qualify for the tax break. I have not done the research to see if any of the above is true. But even assuming that it is true, I find these comments by a city council member, as quoted in the new item, to be illuminating, and not in a good way: “We can’t allow something in the front yard that’s going to delist the property,” said Steve Kozachik, the city council member for Ward 6. In other words, what you get to do on your property is subject to the better judgment of the city. Those comments are on a par with the comment I recently posted from the mayor of New York, who thinks that the government knows better than you do how your money should be spent.
IS HOME TITLE LOCK A SERVICE THAT YOU REALLY NEED? MY LATEST UPDATE ADDRESSES THE QUESTION12/18/2019 Have you heard the advertising for Home Title Lock? If you listen to news radio, you will hear it. The advertising says that real estate title fraud is a significant risk for homeowners, and that you need their product to protect you from that type of fraud. Of course that’s what they say.
I think it is unlikely that Home Title Lock is something you really need. That’s my opinion because I think you probably have insurance already in place that protects you against the type of fraud that Home Title Lock says it will detect. To find out why that’s my opinion, I encourage you to read my Real Estate Law Update for December. It was posted yesterday in the News & Events section of my law firm’s web site, deconcinimcdonald.com. I am interested to hear if any of my readers have encountered real estate title fraud, and if you have any opinion on the subject. I have seen this news item linked in at least two different places, so I don’t want to give it more attention than it deserves, but I think it’s worthy of notice and comment because it’s an apt illustration of a subject that I have repeatedly discussed in this space. The subject is the extent to which the concerns of other should control my use of my private property. This example goes much further than the land use planning issues that I have discussed here in the past, however, because the suggestion in this case would, if implemented, dictate that private property owners dedicate part of their property to residential use by others without compensation.
The example is just a suggestion by a narrow majority of a subcommittee in one city, so it’s far from a trend, but it does illustrate, to me anyway, that there is no reach too far for some people who believe that government should be able to dictate how private property owners can use their property. Via Overlawyered. A quote from an opinion by the Delaware Court of Chancery issued October 7, 2019: “Delaware case law is clear that the board of directors of a for-profit corporation . . . must, within the limits of its legal discretion, treat stockholder welfare as the only end, considering other interests only to the extent that doing so is rationally related to stockholder welfare.” Via Professor Bainbridge.
To try to make up for that, I’m suggesting that you take a look at the item about it posted today at tucson.com. It has a large number of interesting photos chronicling the history of the U.S.S. Arizona. It’s well worth looking at (and is not behind their usual paywall).
I don’t recall ever seeing anyone riding one of the e-scooters in Tucson, although I have seen them parked here and there. I suppose they really could be a menace, but except possibly on 4th Avenue, I don’t see how they could be prevalent enough to be as much of a problem as this news item suggests. Thank goodness our protectors on the city council have seen fit to allow the scooters to remain, at least for now.
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AuthorThe contents of this blog, this web site, and any writings by me that are linked here, are all my personal commentary. None of it is intended to be legal advice for your situation. Archives
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