All Forum Posts by: Bryan Zuetel

I don't know that I would question whether it's legal.  I would suspect that you agreed to using their workers and repairmen in your lease agreement.

I'm a California real estate attorney and broker.  As others have stated, part of the decision is up to you and whether you want to quickly sell a total fixer for less or take longer and sell a turnkey home for more.  However, the decision on disclosure is not up to you.  

Among other disclosures, by California law, you are required to disclose known material facts about the property.  If you do an inspection, you will learn many material facts about the property, and you will be required to disclose those material facts to a buyer.  On the other hand, if the buyer obtains a report and if you are never apprised of the results of that report, it is arguable that you do not have to disclose those items to a future buyer, if the first buyer falls through.  You will also have other disclosure requirements mandated by statute and contract.

Given the market, if it was my home, I would do minimal cleaning, touch-up, and paint and then put it on the market as a great fixer with lots of potential.

I'm a California real estate attorney and broker and deal with violations for my local association. Generally, an agent has two business days to modify the status of a property, in this case from active to contingent. This is basically a violation of MLS Rules and may be a violation of the Realtor Code of Ethics.

First, you need to find out what local association the broker/agent is a member of, if any.  I see that you're in Fremont.  If the property is in Fremont, the person might belong to the Bay East Association of Realtors.  If correct, you should contact that association and tell them that you want to submit a complaint regarding this person.

Second, you should also ask the local realtor association what the applicable MLS is. You can then call that MLS and ask to submit a complaint regarding this person as well.

Be aware that this may strain your relationship with the agent, such that the agent will probably not provide you good, if any, competent service and might try to sink the deal.  You say that you have a valid contract (the agent's actions might make you question your assertion).  But, you don't want to go through the headache of trying to enforce your contract, if you can help it.  There is nothing wrong with the agent holding other open houses or trying to obtain back-up buyers, particularly when you still have contingencies remaining on your purchase agreement.

Despite all of the above, you are still obligated to proceed with your due diligence, inspection, and evaluation of the property or to cancel your contract.

@Scott Choppin Thanks for these great resources.  I don't know if you're doing any Signal Hill development, but that city is going crazy right now.  If you have any available properties in Signal Hill, please PM me.  I may have an interested client.  Thanks.

Unless you're hard-pressed for the money, I would not pay the capital gains taxes and would instead 1031 exchange into other cash-flowing properties or DST fractional interest properties. You could even research more exotic uses of the 1031 exchange like vacation properties (where you may be able to live in it for 14 days out of the year), private REIT's, or crowdfunding. However, if your properties are in California, I don't think that we've seen the peak of appreciation yet, so I wouldn't sell.

If you're considering the reverse 1031 exchange, you need to know that there are significantly higher costs and you should factor those higher costs into your decision.

@Raman Bindlish, I'm a California real estate attorney and real estate broker. From your description, it sounds like the property is owner by two individuals as joint tenants (as opposed to owned by an LLC, corporation, or limited partnership). If so, it sounds like this is a general partnership, where one partner can usually exit and dissolve the partnership at any time. I'm not sure what you mean by full sale process, but if one owner is selling to the other, then, yes, you need a purchase contract and other formalities of a California real estate transaction. There might be easier ways to limit costs or paperwork, but I would need more information. The bank will not automatically issue a new loan, so you generally have two options: refinance in your name only or have the owner relinquishing his interest transfer his interest to you and hope that the bank doesn't see it and call the loan due (rare, but usually a possibility based on the terms of the note or deed of trust). Feel free to PM me for more questions and info.

Hi @Kellen Canfield, I'm a California real estate attorney and real estate broker.  Initial question is do you have a valid purchase agreement with the seller(s)?  Because if not, the broker could give you a lot of run around and there's not much you can do, unless the broker is your agent.  Feel free to PM me with more info, and I'll see if I can help.

@Guillaume D. What part of Southern California are you considering moving to?  That would help me in making a recommendation for an immigration attorney.

I really didn't think that I would have to chime in again.  Meaning no offense to them, but to all of the out of state investors, your ideas of what is reasonable or customary or usual frankly have no application to California landlord-tenant law or the California Civil Code.  The relevant Civil Code sections aren't even held to subjective reasonableness, but are generally applied on objective standards of tenantability and habitability.  This is the law of California, like it or not.

As a California real estate attorney and investor, to everyone on here posting about the landlord-tenant laws of other states or opining on California laws: like it or not, agree or disagree, this is California, a super tenant friendly state.  The tenant is almost always right.  There seems to be a lot of wishful thinking about what the California tenant laws should be rather than what the California tenant laws actually are.  Sorry, that's California for you.  Enjoy the weather!