Last week was quite a week. I had two new situations that I've never had before in my eighteen years in practice.
First, a seller client passed away in the middle of our escrow. I represent the buyer on this one. This essentially puts a hold on the sale until all title issues can be cleared up. It was a complicated deal to begin with as the seller was a FSBO (for-sale-by-owner). What did I do on this one? Nothing, and let the estate take care of everything so we can close.
Second, I was blithely invited to commit loan fraud. A potential buyer on one of my listings wanted to get a loan for x-amount of dollars, but also wanted to give the seller a lot of money outside of escrow so he wouldn't have to pay property taxes on the whole amount of the sale. (A property gets re-assessed by the County Tax Assessor when it changes hands. In a normal sale, it is assessed at the purchase price.) I pointed out that this is loan fraud, it's a federal crime, and I don't want to go to jail and neither does this buyer. The buyer plainly didn't care. What did I do on this one? I refused to write the offer, which would have been much lower than what the seller would have accepted anyway.
Sheesh! What will this week bring?
Judy Graff's sublime-to-the-ridiculous (well, mostly ridiculous) take on real estate for east San Fernando Valley and North Los Angeles communities. This includes Hollywood Hills, Burbank, Studio City and Toluca Lake real estate and homes for sale, and also covers Valley Village, North Hollywood, Glendale, Atwater, Highland Park, Silverlake, Sherman Oaks and other L.A. areas too. General news and musings as well.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
This is why you are a successful broker, you have morals and ethics!
ReplyDeleteummm, ouch
ReplyDelete