All Forum Posts by: Jenifer Levini

@Ralph R. You sound like the voice of experience. From a legal perspective, I tell landlords/property mgrs to never waive a late fee. First you need to check the rental agreement to make sure there is a "No Waiver" clause. If there is not, waiving the late fee could void the part of the agreement instituting late fees. But even if there is a No Waiver clause, it sets a bad precedent to let tenants know its negotiable.

I like your all-business approach!

If the verbiage is ambiguous, you or your lawyer can create an addendum to the original contract that clears up the meaning of late fees, then have everyone sign and date it. Give the tenant a copy of the signed addendum.

@Daniel Roose Davis

@Hung Nguyen if you try you will find it with the information I provided.

There is a great Real Estate Investment meetup in San Jose that meets at Harry's Hofbrau. A lot of very motivated agents attend that meeting. Check out Meetup.com to find it.

Can you please elaborate on what cash-only community means, why, and how that works?

Great story. I hope that house cash flows and no accidents happen. Be sure that he understands about insurance and putting some money aside for maintenance and capital improvements. Sigh! I wish I could have done something like that for my kids. In California where property costs a minimum of $500K and a down payment is at least $100K, that is just a dream...

Hi Y'all, I am a real estate attorney in California. I find the arm-chair lawyering conversation interesting and correct on several fronts. If there was an easy and obvious answer then there wouldn't be this debate.

First, "wholesaling" or "wholesale business" is not a legal term in regards to real estate transactions. different people have different ways they do deals and all call it wholesaling. So the question of whether wholesaling is illegal is not a logical legal question because youre asking about a term that is not defined.

There are certainly ways to buy and sell real estate on a "wholesale" market that are legal. And, as people have pointed out above, there are ways to do deals that are fraudulent or misleading that would likely lead to civil remedies and possibly criminal punishments.

One of the biggest ways to make sure that your deals are not fraudulent is to have clear contract language that describes what you are doing. Then the other party cannot ever claim that they were misled. I work with many wholesalers and their contracts, which I write, are clear. And their actions follow the steps outlined in the contracts.

Another very difficult problem is if a party involved in the transaction is a real estate agent. This leads to a lot of potential liability and conflicts of interest. First, real estate agents have fiduciary duties to buyers and sellers which can be violated if their own interest conflicts with their client's interest. Second, agents incur potential liability for their brokers in all their transactions. There is a lot more to explain about this. but if you are an active agent who works under a broker, you should have a long talk with your broker and make sure he/she is informed before you do any sort of wholesale deal, because her/his license is on the hook.

If you are a wholesaler in California and you want help with your contracts, PM me. I cant practice law in other states so I cant answer specific questions for people in other states.

@Blake C.?

Hi @Christopher Greci

Welcome to the tiny house world. Hundreds of people have had this idea, to escape the astronomical rents in Silicon Valley, enjoy the beauty of the Santa Cruz Mountains, live sustainably, have the freedom to move easily, while enjoying the ownership of their home. There are many reasons that no one is doing it legally. The biggest problems have to do with land use (zoning) restrictions. There is no land that is free from government regulations. If you are not within a city, you are still in a county. The county regulations specify what can happen on every inch of the land. I have been trying to build a space for tiny homes for over a year in that area. Its been impossible so far. And, I'm a real estate lawyer who reads those regulations and follows each piece of land on the market.

We have a group that you can join where information is shared about this process:

https://www.meetup.com/We-are-developing-a-tiny-home-village-btwn-Santa-Cruz-SJ/

@Account Closed The answer to your question is: It depends. BOE 100b talks about ownership interest and control. LLCs can be set up in many different ways. The operating agreement may give control to a minority member. So, as usual, the devil is in the details. I dont think you'd get an attorney to tell you that any rule is without exceptions.