All Forum Posts by: David Krulac

Amie D.

Absolutely keep it until it breaks. I've replaced many furnaces, so far I've done 17 new gas furnaces.

But on the other hand, I've kept a bunch also. Just sold a house in Oct. 2012 that had the original 1953 gas furnace. Took a lickin and still tickin.

I bought a place in 1978 that had an old furnace in it probably from the 1950s. I said that I'd replace it in a few years, and I half expected it to break down. Never did and I just replaced it in 2012. another place i have has the original 1952 furnace in it still running great, but I did add central air to it a couple of years ago.

I've been on a plan of upgrading property and imporving the properties, and as I said have updated many furnaces. But I still have some old ones still in service. I have been replacing with 92% efficient gas furnaces with PVC side wall vents, so no chimney is requires and furnance placement doesn't need to be right at the chimney.

Chris Clothier

That's a different perspective.

I wasn't the GC and wasn't on site. The job was fixed bid so I don't really care how many staples that they use. I thought it was over kill to red tag the site and if 12 inch staples is the minimum code then 6 is doubly good?

True Carpenter

An uncontested Quiet Title action can cost $1,000 to $2,000 and take 3 to 6 months. It would typically be done by an attorney, though if you studied up you might be able to do yourself.

A contested Quiet Tittle is horse of a different color, however. A contested QT can costs as much as $45,000 and take 9 years! Ask me how I know.

Tax Sale properties often require a Quiet Title action, properties thta have breaks in titles, I once had a property that had 6 unrecorded deeds in a row, menaing there were 6 owners of the property that never bothered to record their deeds in the courthouse. Makes for a difficult title search. Other times a QT could be used if a lost heir can't be located, or it is uncertain about where they are or if they have passed away.

Another time I had a proeprty where there were 4 heirs who inherited a property in 1899, that's right over 100 years ago. Only 3 signed the deed and the attorney for the buyer advised his client not to buy the property due to this title flaw.

@Chris Clothier

We were doing an extensive remodeling job more than doubling the square footage of the building. As is standard protocol there are many intermediate inspections along the way. One such inspection was the insulation inspection which must be completed before drywall is installed. The governmental inspector came by and failed the insulation inspection and issued a stop work order on all the other work and sent all the trades home. The gross problem detected? There were staples holding the insulation in place one staple every 6 inches. The BOCA building code says that you need to have staples one every twelve inches, therefore we were in gross vialoation. The inspector made the contractor remove every other staple in order to be code compliant. You can't make this stuff up.

Mark H.

When drawing up an easement, the uses of the easement are generally specified. When we get easements, whether by buying, negotiation or court they specify that it is for ingress, egress, and regress and besides a driveway we also add that utilities can be put on or under that easement. I've never seen a walking easement, though if that is what you wanted I see no reason whay that could not be agreed to by the parties.

@Karen M.

If I understand your 20 acres, you have road frontage and you want to subdivide off the rear portion on the other side of the stream and access from somebody else's property on the other side of the stream.

First of all most places I'm familiar with to do a subdivision requires municipal/county approval. No government would let you create a new land locked parcel.

Second of all the legal justification of granting an easement is often that the parcel blocking you from the road was originally part of your parcel and created the landlocked situation and therefore should now remedy that by granting an easement. That would be you in this situation. The legal term for this is "easement by necessity."

@Lynn Henley & @Karen M.

I can't tell you how many landlocked properties that i have bought but it has been a whole bunch.

In many states legally there is no land locked land. But if you can't get a friendly agreement with a neighbor, you would end up having to go to court to get the right of way access. The court will order an appraisal of the property or properties that are to be crossed with the value of the property before the crossing and what diminished value there would be after the crossing. then the crosser would have to pay that amount as a fee for the easement.

1. One exit strategy that we have used is to sell the land to a neighbor who has road frontage or access. This works fairly well except as the seller you must sell but the buyer doesn't have to buy.

2. Second exit strategy would be to buy an easement from a neighbor. One time I paid $1,500 for a 15 foot easement, but i really had no choice. Another time I paid $8,000 for a 600 foot easement.

3. Third exit strategy is buy the property that landlocks you. Done that also. Had 22 acres, that technically wasn't landlocked but had bad access. In front of me was 3 acres with 450 feet of paved public road frontage. I ended up buying the 3 acres for $150,000, but it made 22 acres I already owed much more valuable. btw I paid $15,000 for the 22 acres!

4. Fourth exit strategy, and a last alternative in my mind is to go to court. The $8,000 easement mentioned above was the result of filing a lawsuit action and negotiating a settlement before actually going to court.

5. There are legal grounds for easement such as implication, prescription and necessity, which I won't go into here, refer to your law school texts. But in one case I needed an easement that was over 6,000 feet long, fortunately I only crosses one owner's property and had legal grounds. We ended up after getting lawyers involved and going back and forth reaching a mutual agreement that was recorded in the courthouse as a permanent easement. Later when I did sell the property, an adjoiner on the other side bought it an didn't need the easement. But having the easement increased the interest of other buyers and increased the eventual selling price.

Besides my own book of course I highly recommend:

"How I Turned $1,000 into Five Million in Real Estate" by William Nickerson

"Landlording" by Leigh Robinson (it is the best selling LL book of all time)

"Buy and Hold Forever" by David Schumacher and Steve Dexter

Besides my own book of course I highly recommend:

"How I Turned $1,000 into Five Million in Real Estate" by William Nickerson

"Landlording" by Leigh Robinson (it is the best selling LL book of all time)

"Buy and Hold Forever" by David Schumacher and Steve Dexter

Sometimes liens are missed on the searches, title insurance would cover that.

Tittle insurance can cover unrecorded municipal liens. Had one where the municipality bills for trash and had not been paid in 4 years, no lien was recorded. another time town installed new side walks billed owner, they never paid, town never recorded lien, title insurance covered that.

Mechanics liens here don't have to be recorded until 6 months after work is completed. So they are often not of record.

Plus the forgeries and missing signatures can be covered by title insurance.

Unpaid tax bills are often no recorded. My grandmother bought a property where there was a real estate tax bill from 1910 that was unpaid, yes over 100 years ago. Here there is no limit on unpaid tax bills, she had to pay the bill plus interest, fortunately the real estate bills in 1910 were very small to begin with.

So I still say, "Do you feel lucky?"