Redo Redux

Posted by Cliff Tuttle

So, is 44 the first President of the United States to retake the oath of office?

For the Answer, look in the comments, below.

Category: Uncategorized

Assessment Appeals — Its time Again!

Posted by Cliff Tuttle

If you purchased a piece of property last year for an amount less than the fair market value listed in the assessment, you ought to be thinking about filing an assessment appeal. Or if you believe that the fair market value of the property you already own is less than the assessment, consider it also. If you want to check your current assessment, click here.

Of course, assessments are a little trickier than that. Allegheny County adopted a base year of 2002 for assessments, which means that the asessment should reflect the fair market value of the property in 2002. This system, which is practiced in various forms in many Pennsylvania Counties, is presently being challenged in an appeal before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The Court has had the case for a while and the decision will probably be announced this year. But it almost certainly won’t effect the 2009 values.

If you want to appeal, you can obtain the form by clicking here. Print it out and fill it out by hand. Then Mail it or deliver it to the Allegheny County Board of Property Assessment Appeals and Review, Third Floor County Office Building, Pittsburgh PA 15219. The deadline is March 31.

CLT

Category: Uncategorized

One Person . . . One of a Kind . . . a Force.

Posted by Cliff Tuttle

A truism worth considering from time to time: we are all one person. Yes, we interact with others, become part of organizations, learn teamwork, achieve through group effort and coordination — all of that. Notwithstanding, each of us is still just one person and always so will be.

We all are endowed with a mind that is ours alone. We have built it through experiences collected from every waking moment since our first and through trillions of personal decisions. When we became part of most organizations, we made the decision to do so and in most cases, we could decide to resign.

One person will always make a difference, because we are all one person.

April Charney is an attorney with the publicly-funded legal services organization in Jacksonville Florida. By definition, none of her clients can afford to pay her and we the public don’t pay so well, either. However, I and many others can attest that her legal mind is as sharp as her best paid contemporary in the best paid law firm in the USA. Some might go so far as to say that she is one of the most influential lawyers in America today. I’ll save you the trouble of looking up her page on AVVO. Click here.

Sorry, Ms. Charney’s AVVO listing doesn’t tell you very much. Like most lawyers found on AVVO, she hasn’t claimed her page. Unclaimed pages contain basic information AVVO picks up from websites and other on-line sources. You’ll see where AVVO probably found the picture later. If she had claimed her page and reported her achievements, Ms. Charney’s very average AVVO score would have undoubtedly risen much higher. Yet, the web page you just viewed was among the top ten hits on AVVO last week. Why? Lets look at the website of Jacksonville Area Legal Aid. Click here.

From what we have seen thus far, Ms. Charney is an ordinary staff lawyer, one among many, at a legal services office. She holds the kind of job almost any lawyer who is currently employed would not want. Everybody knows that legal aid lawyers handle the cases nobody wants and too many of them. So why is this legal aid staff lawyer in the AVVO top ten?

April Charney specializes in the rare legal field of mortgage foreclosure defense. Mortgage foreclosure has long been considered an area of the law where there is no defense. The law in this field has been summarized to millions of new borrowers by millions of mortgage loan closers in four words: “You pay, you stay!” But never underestimate an ingenious lawyer and Ms. Charney is one.

She has been a driving force in the development of various defenses that have, at least for the present, been giving fits to lawyers for the mortgage securitization industry. Lawyers, judges, regulators and finally legislators are starting to see old issues in a new light. Through seminars, consumer organizations and the internet, Ms Charney has shared these emerging ideas with other lawyers around the country.

Some say that such developments are disrupting the work of the courts and that Ms. Charney is creating evil consequences, not good. Some say that public funds should not be spent to further such an agenda. That is a subject for other posts. But the mere argument against the Charney Revolution makes the point. Good or evil, this one lawyer, by herself, is a force.

Now read some of April Charney’s press clippings. Click here and here.

CLT

Category: Uncategorized

Mortgage Foreclosure: New Cover Sheet in Allegheny County

Posted by Cliff Tuttle

Under the new Pilot Project of the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County, mortgage foreclosure complaints are required to use a new cover sheet that contains additional information. Click here to see a copy.

The sheet contains check boxes which enable the Court personnel to identify an owner-occupied one to four family residence, which is qualified for assistance under the program. It also contains a place, at the bottom of the page, for the Plaintiff to fill in the name and contact information of a representative of the lender with “authority to discuss this action.”

Authority to discuss an action is, of course, short of authority to modify a mortgage or settle a suit. It is a safe guess that the attorney for the plaintiff will probably be named in this slot most of the time. It remains to be seen whether the lender representative will be instructed to come prepared with authority to settle, or have immediate telephone contact with one who does.

Beginning Monday, January 12, qualified defendants received a notice from the Sheriff with service of the Complaint, giving the name of the “Save Your Home Hotline.” The notice states, in part:

“You will be put in touch with a non-profit Housing Counselor FREE OF CHARGE to help you try to work out arrangements with your mortgage company.

The housing counselor will schedule a conference under the court’s supervision to determine whether a work out can be arranged.

To get help you must call the Hotline and go to a Housing Counselor. They will tell you what to do next.”

The notice also contains the telephone number of the Hotline.

CLT

Category: Uncategorized

LandAmerica 1031 Pingbacks v. the Zombie Bots.

Posted by Cliff Tuttle

As PLBT readers know, I don’t fancy robotic comments. But I will consider “pingbacks” from websites relevent to the themes of this blog. A pingback occurs when a website reposts your work and sends an electronic calling card to let you know, containing its url. A number of these pingbacks have come in lately from 1031 services. This was especially so with the recent Missing Link post (click here).

So, I figured that some of the readers of PLBT’s coverage of LandAmerica 1031 might be interested in other 1031 sites and I have approved all of them so far. You can find these pingbacks among the comments following various 1031 posts.

Not so with websites selling other unrelated products and services, some of which I dare not name. The mere use of a key word like *** or ****** would attract a crowd of zombies. For you old timers, can you remember “You Bet Your Life” with Groucho Marx? Say the Magic Word in a blog and you win a Thousand Zombies!

CLT

Category: Uncategorized

Real Estate: FNF Takes Some Heat on the Commonwealth-Lawyers Acquisition

Posted by Cliff Tuttle

And so it came to pass that Fidelity National Financial held an AT&T Conference Call so that the whole world could ask questions of its top management about their acquisition of Lawyers Title Insurance and Commonwealth Insurance from LandAmerica. The host for a panel of corporate officers was FNF Treasurer Dan Murphy.

Murphy started the call by reciting how the merger had lead to the overnight transformation of Lawyers and Commonwealth from the point of collapse to becoming financially strong.

Then, the first caller, Robert Goodman from Albuquerque, smote FNF mightily by relating that some of his business colleagues had lost sizable amounts of money with LandAmerica 1031 and although he had been a customer of Commonwealth, he had a “real fundamental problem that that thing had ever happened” and that it was “just left there.” He realized that FNF was not legally responsible, he said, but he saw it as a matter of ethics.

Good point. Very good point. The reason LandAmerica 1031 was “just left there” was that FNF refused to acquire its parent, LandAmerica, in November. This segued into the very slick bankruptcy deal whereby FNF acquired Lawyers and Commonwealth without the stain of LandAmerica 1031.

Al Stinson, CEO of FNF, responded that he could surely understand how the caller might feel that way, but the problem of LandAmerica 1031 was LandAmerica’s problem, not FNF’s, which LandAmerica must solve “as they work their way through the debtor-in-possession process.”

Then a few questions later, another Commonwealth customer, Petrina Markowitz, related that Fidelity people had fired everyone in the Commonwealth Title Garden City office, leaving her, she alleged, stuck in mid-transaction. “I am livid with you!” she exclaimed.

FNF management reacted cooly to this crisis. No one on the panel expressed concern for this customer’s problem or pledged to look into it. Henceforth, they declared, no questions on individual problems would be addressed. Please restrict your questions to “the big picture.”

Humph! Not handled well.

So, if public relations was the objective of this exercise, the outcome was at best mixed. At least, the calls were not screened. The Lawyers and Commonwealth agents, employees and customers who asked questions seemed to be edgy and poorly informed. This performance showed that FNF has a great deal of work to do. It also provided plenty of marketing ideas — for Stewart Title, First American Title and the rest of the non-FNF half of the title insurance world, that is.

The FNF team might want to consult a just-published book called “Jeffrey Gitomer’s Little Teal Book of Trust.”

If you would like to hear the FNF call-in session for yourself, replays are currently running until January 20 at a telephone near you. In the US, call (800) 475-6701. Internationally call (320) 365-3844. When you are prompted, use the access code 98143.

CLT

Category: Uncategorized

So, you think you are having a bad day . . .

Posted by Cliff Tuttle

Click here.

Category: Uncategorized

A Quick Primer on Pre-emption

Posted by Cliff Tuttle

As discussed in PLBT a few days ago, our Commonwealth Court held that the Oil and Gas Act, a state statute, pre-empted local zoning ordinances that attempted to regulate the placement of gas wells. But, due to somewhat different statutory language, the Surface Mining Conservation Act (SMCRA), a very similar statute, did not pre-empt an attempt through zoning to regulate the location of a surface coal mine.

The court concluded that the legislature intended for pre-emption to occur in one case and not the other. I criticized the SMCRA case quite severely. It is absurd to argue that the legislature intended to authorize local community zoning boards to overrule state coal mining regulation on issues involving coal mine safety and development.

A federal case involving pre-emption of local ordinances came up recently that illustrates the point quite well. The City of Albuquerque, NM enacted a so-called Green Building Code. The Code called for new and remodeled buildings to meet higher standards for energy efficiency. The ordinance was attacked by trade groups representing the heating and air-conditioning and water heating equipment industries.

The judge wrote that, when the ordinance was enacted, the City lawmakers were unaware that federal statutes regulated the subject and that the statutes contained clear language expressing the intention that federal law pre-empt the field.

Here is a post in the Law of the Land Blog on the subjects with links to in-depth discussion of legal issues involving Green Development.

CLT

Category: Uncategorized

Real Estate: A Few Thoughts about HUD’s New Settlement Sheets

Posted by Cliff Tuttle

HUD has expressed a goal of reducing settlement costs by holding the settlement officer’s feet to the fire, forcing him/her to demonstrate in absolute terms that the charges at settlement do not exceed those set forth in the Good Faith Estimate (GFE). The link to the new HUD1 is here and the HUD1A, here.

There is no choice. The new HUD1 and HUD1A will become mandatory in a year. Some lenders may choose to use them early — but based on experience with the last change, over a decade ago, that won’t happen. Almost everyone will wait until the mandatory period begins. Last time, lenders and settlement agencies were so unready after one year that the mandatory use date had to be extended.

The first page looks exactly like the old version. The second page at first blush looks nearly identical. The primary difference is the references on most lines to the the corresponding line on the GFE.

However, every line in Section 1100 has been used — leaving no room for deed preparation charges, tax and lien letter charges, zoning certificates, attorneys fees — all items previously entered in this section. Instead, by default, those items will probably need to be moved to Section 1300, Additional Settlement Charges.

But Section 1300 only has five lines, the first being used up by a new reference to “required services that you can shop for.” If this includes a termite inspection on line 1302 and a survey on line 1303, there are only three lines left. So you use line 1303 for deed preparation, line 1304 for municipal lien and tax letters, zoning certificates, etc. Then use line 1304 for attorneys fees. Now there is one line left to pay everyone else, including tax collectors. This means you can either steal unused lines from other sections or add an additional page.

But don’t try stealing the one empty line from Section 700, involving real estate commissions. Agencies collect “record retention fees” or “administration fees” on that line and you will need to find extra lines for the other realtor’s special charges and for the increasingly popular Home Warranty Insurance charges. With a shortage of available lines, you will need to use line 1305 to bring forward the charges from the absolutely essential additional page.

However, the biggest change is the addition of page 3. At the top, you are required to list “Changes that Cannot Increase More than 10%”, with line-by-line comparisons of the GFE and the HUD-1. At the bottom of the column, the net dollar increase is calculated, together with the percentage increase. This of course will guarantee that the increase of settlement charges over the GFE will never be more than 10%.

It is not hard to figure out what will happen in practice. There will be a cushion added to certain GFE estimated charges, with the final total coming in less than the estimate — gratifying everyone.

The bottom of page 3 is a recap of the loan terms. It is an expansion of the bottom part of the existing Truth in Lending Disclosure. It is a nice, clear summary of what every settlement agent should disclose at closing, with the added advantage that it is in writing and can be used later for reference. The HUD1A form uses the same document as its second page.

This will also relieve part of the problem that too many closings are being conducted by notaries who cannot explain much more than where to sign. Some lenders have gone so far as to prohibit these undereducated settlement officers from explaining anything — for protection of the lender.

But, of course, the answers at the bottom of page three only raise additional questions. This was no problem at all when the lawyer who regularly represented the lender conducted the closing. He or she could give accurate and complete answers, since he or she was quite familiar with the documents, the terms of the loan and pretty much anything likely to arise during a closing.

Whenever change occurs, something is lost and something is gained. And some lost things are never regained.

CLT

Category: Uncategorized

Real Estate: The New HUD1 and HUD1A

Posted by Cliff Tuttle

If you haven’t seen the new HUD1 settlement statement or HUD1A settlement statement, click here and here.

HUD’s big idea was to force whoever prepares the settlement sheet to spell out the charges set forth in the Good Faith Estimate and make a side by side comparison with actual charges. The primary effect of this change is to create more work for whoever must prepare the settlement sheet. The claim that it will save $700 in settlement costs is so much baloney.

A year is given before use is mandatory. Look for no one to use the new documents until January 2010 — assuming an extension is not granted. More about this subject later.

CLT

Category: Uncategorized

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Welcome

CLIFF TUTTLE has been a Pennsylvania lawyer for over 45 years and (inter alia) is a real estate litigator and legal writer. The posts in this blog are intended to provide general information about legal topics of interest to lawyers and consumers with a Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania focus. However, this information does not constitute legal advice and there is no lawyer-client relationship created when you read this blog. You are encouraged to leave comments but be aware that posted comments can be read by others. If you wish to contact me in privacy, please use the Contact Form located immediately below this message. I will reply promptly and in strict confidence.

Pittsburgh Legal Back Talk

Legal topics of interest to lawyers and consumers with a Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania focus.

1410 Posts and Counting

Categories

Redo Redux

Assessment Appeals — Its time Again!

One Person . . . One of a Kind . . . a Force.

Mortgage Foreclosure: New Cover Sheet in Allegheny County

LandAmerica 1031 Pingbacks v. the Zombie Bots.

Real Estate: FNF Takes Some Heat on the Commonwealth-Lawyers Acquisition

So, you think you are having a bad day . . .

A Quick Primer on Pre-emption

Real Estate: A Few Thoughts about HUD’s New Settlement Sheets

Real Estate: The New HUD1 and HUD1A

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