All Forum Posts by: Chris K.

@Account Closed

In the short term, probably. In the long term, it's hard to say. Here, you have someone building a 200 unit resort in a small town. This means that someone thinks the town has inherent desirability. That's generally a good sign. But whether that remains the case in the long term is hard to predict. There are many examples of tourist towns that had dramatic shifts in real estate prices. They rose quickly when everything was optimistic. It then falls off a cliff for one reason or another.  

Disclaimer: While I’m an attorney licensed to practice in PA, I’m not your attorney. What I wrote above does not create an attorney/client relationship between us. I wrote the above for informational purposes. Do not rely on it for legal advice. Always consult with your attorney before you rely on the above information.

@Matt Brunson

Most title companies owned by attorneys can handle these closings. Sometimes the issue is that the wholesaler does not like what the title attorney tells them. But that's a separate discussion. 

Disclaimer: While I’m an attorney licensed to practice in PA, I’m not your attorney. What I wrote above does not create an attorney/client relationship between us. I wrote the above for informational purposes. Do not rely on it for legal advice. Always consult with your attorney before you rely on the above information.

@Seth Tandett

I agree with @Aaron K. and @Greg Dickerson: if you have the means to become a developer for any decent-sized projects, you can afford to hire a good team around you. In most cases, the developer relies on the GC, architect, and any consultants on the projects to handle most interactions. Developers working on mega jobs may hire a full-time manager to supervise the job site during the entire duration of the project. 

Given your experience, you may find some smaller/newer developers that may want to hire you as a consultant. For example, I know a few smaller developers in my area that hired people for such purposes. But these tend to be tiny projects in the grand scheme of construction projects (probably sub $5 million for the entire project cost). In these projects, the developers often act as the GC for the project. Setting aside whether that's a wise decision, it's not unusual for the developer to hire someone with construction experience to act as a project manager of sorts. 

For these small projects, I could theoretically see someone giving up some equity for help depending on their cash situation. But the value of the equity is probably minor given the project size. 

Disclaimer: While I’m an attorney licensed to practice in PA, I’m not your attorney. What I wrote above does not create an attorney/client relationship between us. I wrote the above for informational purposes. Do not rely on it for legal advice. Always consult with your attorney before you rely on the above information.

@Nick Liddell

Contact the relevant tax claim bureau to get more information about the local procedure. But from what I can see, it looks like it's an upset sale. I'm oversimplifying it a bit but an upset sale does not really divest anything but the ownership interest in the property. So an upset sale doesn't divest any of the other interests in the property (e.g. mortgage, other liens, etc.). 

If the property doesn't sell at the upset sale, the bureau will eventually conduct a judicial sale (a/k/a free and clear sale). While this kind of sale could theoretically divest most of the other interests, the bureaus often do not follow proper procedure due to the sheer volume of cases they need to handle. Thus the risk level is still high. 

Also, note that getting a marketable title for a tax-sale property may require you to conduct a quiet-title action or wait a really long time. So if you intend to refinance or sell the property, you have to keep those potential costs in mind. 

Disclaimer: While I’m an attorney licensed to practice in PA, I’m not your attorney. What I wrote above does not create an attorney/client relationship between us. I wrote the above for informational purposes. Do not rely on it for legal advice. Always consult with your attorney before you rely on the above information.

@Wojciech Jaworowski

Aside from Parasole, you may also want to try Landmark Management. The owner --- @Marc Winter --- is active on BP. 

Disclaimer: While I’m an attorney licensed to practice in PA, I’m not your attorney. What I wrote above does not create an attorney/client relationship between us. I wrote the above for informational purposes. Do not rely on it for legal advice. Always consult with your attorney before you rely on the above information.

@Courtney A Hall

What's the business agreement say about the choice of law/choice of forum? Typically the agreement would say that the laws of a particular state apply to the underlying agreement. It would also typically say you can only bring a lawsuit in a certain county within a state (or say that the parties must arbitrate). 

In any event, I would engage counsel and have the attorney look at all the relevant documents/facts. 

Disclaimer: While I’m an attorney licensed to practice in PA, I’m not your attorney. What I wrote above does not create an attorney/client relationship between us. I wrote the above for informational purposes. Do not rely on it for legal advice. Always consult with your attorney before you rely on the above information.

@Brianne Leichliter

As @Tom Gimer pointed out, Pennsylvania is not a community property state. We instead use tenancy by the entirety ("TBE"). Under the TBE system, the default presumption is that spouses own everything together that they acquired during the marriage. There are ways to challenge that presumption but it can become a challenge.

Because divorce proceeding (and family law in general) are extremely fact-specific, it's hard for anyone to give you meaningful answers on a public forum like this. I would say check with your divorce attorney to see if he/she can negotiate out some kind of agreement regarding this partnership idea. If the other side is cooperative, you might be able to get it done. If the other side is not and you choose to move forward, you may have a tricky situation on your hands. 

Long story short, I would talk to a proper family law lawyer to see what he or she says. 

Disclaimer: While I’m an attorney licensed to practice in PA, I’m not your attorney. What I wrote above does not create an attorney/client relationship between us. I wrote the above for informational purposes. Do not rely on it for legal advice. Always consult with your attorney before you rely on the above information.

@Josiah Patrick Zebarth

It really depends on what you want to do. Here are two concrete things that college/university can provide: 

• College can provide you with a degree. Some degrees are much more valuable than others. And some career paths require you to have certain degrees. For example, you cannot become an engineer without an engineering degree. Likewise, if you want to become a CPA, you have to take certain courses from qualifying institutions. So if you want to go into any of those fields (or have the option to), then you kind of have to go to college. 

• Some colleges can provide you with a "prestige" factor. Think about it as a quick way for other's to gauge your merit. For example, let's say you graduated from Harvard or Princeton. The fact that you did allows other people you meet in life to safely assume that you are probably a smart, hard-working guy. Now I'm not saying that you need a degree from a fancy school to do so. But the benefits can be real.   

If neither factors are important to your life, college might not be the best choice.  

Disclaimer: While I’m an attorney licensed to practice in PA, I’m not your attorney. What I wrote above does not create an attorney/client relationship between us. I wrote the above for informational purposes. Do not rely on it for legal advice. Always consult with your attorney before you rely on the above information.

In the "proper" construction world, the AIA system is the default system. All proper developers, architects, general contractors, and subcontractors understand how the AIA system works. So we can proceed with larger construction projects without having to reinvent the wheel every time. 

Unfortunately, it's kind of like the wild wild west in the smaller construction world. You can make the contractors sign whatever you want, but having them follow it is a totally different matter. And oftentimes, the owner really has no practical remedies if the contractor breaches the contract. Many smaller contractors live paycheck to paycheck. So if they took your money and spent it, there's not much you can do to recover it. 

So you can include "liquidated damages" and specific procedure for "change order" work. But actually enforcing them is very, very difficult. This is even true for someone like me that's a lawyer and owns a construction company. 

Disclaimer: While I’m an attorney licensed to practice in PA, I’m not your attorney. What I wrote above does not create an attorney/client relationship between us. I wrote the above for informational purposes. Do not rely on it for legal advice. Always consult with your attorney before you rely on the above information.

@Daniel Coleman

Of all my time being a real estate lawyer and owner of a construction company, I can't say I ever ran into a situation where a GC "stole" the design documents. Unless the GC does design-build work as well, I fail to see what value it has to them. 

For what it's worth, most litigation I see in this realm fall into two categories. First categories involve payment/termination disputes between two parties (e.g. owner v. architect firm, architect v. architect firm, etc.). While architects commonly raise copyright claims in such a scenario, the real underlying dispute is often about payment of money and/or improper termination. The second category involves lawsuits where some website "steals" and sells an architectural plan to unsuspecting buyers. While the threat there is real, most proper GCs are not in that market. 

On a more practical level, how would the GC get bids from subcontractors for these projects? As a glass and glazing subcontractor, we generally don't even look at projects where the customer fails to provide proper plans and specs. Once in a while, we may look into it further if we trust the referring party. But in most cases, it's a waste of time for us to even consider those projects.  

Disclaimer: While I’m an attorney licensed to practice in PA, I’m not your attorney. What I wrote above does not create an attorney/client relationship between us. I wrote the above for informational purposes. Do not rely on it for legal advice. Always consult with your attorney before you rely on the above information.