Real Estate Professionals: READ YOUR SURVEYS!

Today we had an interesting case in the office. A man in his fifties was referred to me for advice about a boundary line dispute. A boundary line is basically the property line around your property. What all real estate attorneys should do when they are retained to represent a prospective purchaser of property is to order a survey. Sometimes, it is possible to locate and old survey of the property and to have it updated to show any changes since the date that the survey had been prepared. Often, an old survey can not be located and it is the real estate attorney's job to order the new survey. But the job is not just to order the survey, then place it in a file and give a copy to the purchaser at closing. The actual job is to read the survey and explain it to the client. Now for over twenty years as a real estate professional I have seen all sorts of surveys and most of them have me raising questions and it is only fair to point out these questions and issues to the client who is making a huge financial decision to purchase a property and relying on his lawyer.

Getting back now to the fellow who walked into my office earlier today, his issue was that he had decided to rip down the fence between his property and his neighbors property and put up a nice new fence. What he also decided to do was to move the fence so that it was on the correct property line. His neighbor was not very happy about this decision. You see his neighbor has a narrow driveway and by moving the fence over one foot it made the neighbors driveway narrower. Hence, the two neighbors got into a dispute and my client was served with a summons in which his neighbor was claiming adverse possession. The first document that I asked my client to produce was a copy of the survey from when he closed on his house. He had no idea what a survey was and handed me a very pretty closing folder that had been prepared by the closing attorney. I sifted through the documents and low and behold there was a survey in there. Not to my surprise the survey showed that there was a fence between the two properties and that when he had closed on his house the fence was 1.4 feet on my clients property. What this meant is that the fence was protruding on my client's property so that the neighbor had the use of 1.4 feet of my clients property for his driveway. My client had closed on October 8, 2007 and the survey was dated October 2, 2007. What a shame that the survey had not been prepared and discussed with my client at least a few weeks before the closing took place.

It is the real estate attorney's job to get that survey prepared weeks before the closing to sit down with his client and to discuss anything that isn't legally correct. If a fence line on a survey is different from the property line by one foot or more then a purchaser's needs to contact the seller's attorney and request a boundary line agreement to be signed by the neighbor. If it is less than one foot, the purchaser can obtain title insurance. If the neighbor is unwilling to sign a boundary line agreement then the issue needs to come to light and the purchaser needs to be informed so that an educated and knowledgeable decision can be made as to whether the transaction should go forward.

So next time you are out house hunting and a real estate broker or an owner tells you that his property is 50' x 100' or his attached house is 20' x 45', don't just smile and accept it but be cautious and diligent. Take out a tape measure from your jacket and do a little measuring. When you hire your attorney request that when he obtains the survey that you want to be involved on any questions or issues with respect to fence lines, and/or easements that affect the property. Happy house hunting!

Selling or buying a property? Protect your asset!

As a real estate attorney having practiced in New York since 1991, I’ve come across all sorts of situations but this was a first for me. Just before we went to close on behalf of a seller who decided to move down South a few months before the closing was to take place, we got a frantic call from the purchaser's attorney that his client had just completed a final walk through of the house before the closing only to find homeless people living in the house. What a surprise it was when we located our client in Alabama and told her that she had homeless people in her house. The plot thickened when we called the real estate broker who represented the seller and she told us that she was a little embarrassed because the so called "homeless people" in the house were actually clients of hers who had sold their home a week earlier. She thought she was doing a good deed to let them come into the house to take a shower. Well clearly this was a very long shower and no one was amused! The closing was rescheduled and the broker organized for the "homeless people" to vacate the house and move elsewhere.

It is important when you are selling a house and you have made arrangements to move elsewhere, that you have a responsible person looking after your financial asset, probably your largest financial asset while it is vacant. It is not enough to trust the real estate broker who you probably met three weeks before you listed the house to take care of things. I would suggest that you have a family member take care of it or you speak to your attorney about this issue. There are so many things that can go wrong with a property that you own if you are not there to take care of it. You need to make sure that the gas has been turned off and it will not be a bad idea to make sure the water is turned off at the mains. A friend or some other responsible party should check on the house at least twice a week to make sure that everything is okay. You should also check your insurance policy with respect to coverage if the property is left vacant. There have been cases where major damage has occurred in a property and the owners have placed a claim with the insurance company only to find out that the claim has been rejected due to the fact that the insurance policy was written with the expressed term that somebody is to live at the property at all times. An insurance policy for a property which is vacant is a different type of insurance policy so unless the policy that you have is specific to the situation you may find that you were sitting with a property with no insurance.

As a seasoned real estate lawyer, I urge my clients to sit down with me even before they sell their property in order that we can address all these issues before they place their property on the market. While this article addressed a specific issue that arose from a recent situation there are just so many issues that are not only applicable to residential real estate but also to applicable to commercial real estate. Finally, if you are purchasing a property, please make sure you inspect the property right before closing. You don't need any surprises after having handed over the monies at the closing.

My new Realestate Blog

This is going to be an exciting new blog for all sorts of investors to read and gain knowledge to save money and time in buying and selling real estate in New York.