All Forum Posts by: Stephen Huff

Hi Robert - I think you have a lot of homework to do. ;^) While the guy says he's the owner because the sister died and left it to him in a will, you're right to go to the county tax records and see whose name is actually on the title. (This will also show if the property taxes are current - lots of times, elderly people forget to make these payments. And, are there any other liens from some past repairs or judgments?)

Since I'm not a lawyer and I don't know what state you're in, you'll need to find out if this property passed to this guy automatically because a living trust was in place, or if it needs to go through probate before he gets it, or if he was a joint owner with the sister.

If all this is clean, then you should be able to buy it from the guy. But that's why you'll want a title company to handle the transaction - they'll make sure the title is clean.

If in doubt, go get a lawyer who knows real estate. 

+1 what Russell said. ;^)

A good HOA should have done this properly for fear of legal action. Yes, I believe they are legally responsible. Disclaimer: that was my experience here in CA, where our HOA did all the work in a similar situation.

So keep track of all your expenses, including your lost time, and get it sold. Then I think you could go ahead and get a FL RE lawyer to pursue legal action to recover the expenses - and maybe a little more due to negligence.

I'm starting to learn the hard way that bills follow the house in GA - trying to resolve a 6-year-old water bill that was deducted from my proceeds when I sold a house in Atlanta, even though I never had an account with the water department. Wasn't ever reported and didn't show up on any title reports.

As Mr. Brooks says, get in touch with the HOA, and find out where they sent the previous bills, and what their collection efforts were. Is this for the dues you owe since you bought the house in 2015? $2500 might be 10 or 12 years worth, or 5 or 6 years (my former HOA in NorCal is up to $425/month) - why did they wait this long? Usually, after about 3 years, the HOA can start foreclosure. I'm kinda surprised the HOA didn't buy it auction - we did that on a condo unit, then re-sold it to satisfy the outstanding past dues.

I think I'd also suggest getting an attorney to represent you, since they already have one coming after you. Hopefully, a few letters and maybe a face-to-face negotiation could result in a compromise, and you'd only be out of pocket the attorney's fees.

Having said all this, something doesn't seem right. If it's a legitimate debt, the HOA would have put a lien on the house already, and this would have been discovered by your closing attorney. (Or maybe there wasn't one because it was sold at auction?) Seems to me the city/county doing the auction should have disclosed this as well. If they didn't, why not?

Hope this helps . . .

Hi John - Congratulations on the good year! ;^)

If I remember right, you can deduct an amount of the expenses based on the size of office space compared to the whole house. For example, if you exclusively use one 10' x 15' bedroom (150 sq ft) for your day trading, and the whole house is 2,000 sq ft, then the percentage is 150/2000 = 7.5%. 

But if you purchased outright, does this mean you have no mortgage? If so, then you can't deduct the mortgage interest, but you can deduct a portion of property tax.

And you will have some other expenses such as Internet and maybe mobile phone costs - but you will need to separate out "personal use" vs. business use. Plus, you'll have to see if there were any fees the brokerage house charged you that can be used to reduce the capital gains from the trading profits.

As others who respond here will probably say, you should contact a good CPA who is very familiar with day traders and home office business expense. There are a lot of "rules" that sometimes change every year, so your CPA/tax guy needs to be current in his/her knowledge about this area.

Lastly, I don't think you'll need a business license, but you should check with your local city and county offices on their rules. As a "sole proprietor" you end end up paying self-employment taxes because you're both an employer and employee. If you set up an LLC, you might be able to save in some areas, but pay in others (for example, here in California, we get to pay $800 a year just for the LLC registration, regardless if any profit was made). Again, talk to the tax pro.

Hope this helps . . .

Apologies for this late addition to the thread, but I was speaking to Intuit's QB support a week or so ago on another matter, and was told that there is likely to be a QB Mac version in 2019. Woo-hoo! ;^)

Good point, Brian. I re-read David's original post and realized it was just a plumber who supposedly fixed the problem. Nothing was mentioned about the mold remediation. :^( This is a serious problem, and there is a specific way these remediation guys work to clean away mold that's there and treat the area so it doesn't reoccur. But if there is water again on the first floor, then whatever they did in the crawl space under the second floor didn't work. In-wall plumbing problems like this are often HOA problems, not the seller's. But it's still the seller's responsibility to fix it, which may mean they will have to file a claim against the HOA to get resources to fix it - and certify it was done properly.

I must also note that what I've said was based on my situation up north, where I knew the CC&Rs pretty thoroughly. Obviously, I don't know the specifics for this HB property. 

David, I would err on the side of caution: make sure there are licensed remediation guys doing the clean-up work, and make sure the plumbers did their job, too. Unfortunately, this may mean cutting into a wall or ceiling to find the leak. But I'd want photos of the problem and the solution to prove the mold is gone and the leak is fixed before I'd close escrow.

My perspective on this as a former HOA manager for a 104-unit complex in northern California is that the HOA needs to know because of the possible impact to adjoining units. We had one unit that developed mold because of a pretty much invisible roof leak. Obviously, the HOA was responsible in that case. So to me, telling the HOA is to get it documented that this was a problem BEFORE your parents purchased the unit. I'd push the repair guy to identify the source of the mold. And as I mentioned, this may be a problem in a part of the building that is HOA responsibility.

But I also think the ultimate responsibility is with the seller, their agent and the repair company. I wouldn't close escrow until all repairs and re-repairs were final and guaranteed. I'd be tempted to bring in my own inspector to confirm the correctness of the work. And then I'd get some sort of "hold harmless" document signed.

Out of curiosity, how old is the building? And are there any other reports of mold near the unit? I lived in HB many years ago (last century ;^) ) and the moist ocean air was always present.

Besides having used QB on a Mac for years for a small Internet consulting business, I've recently used it just for 2 RE investing LLCs financial management. My needs are pretty basic - don't have employees and don't need mobile. Been doing "old school" spreadsheets for project management. If I do more projects, will probably have to look at other tools. I have access to another tool that does a much better job of the estimating and management tasks, but I don't have enough projects per year to justify the expense.

My biggest concern about web-based tools is that I don't always have  access to a fast Internet. If I'm out and about, I can pop into a library, but most have such slow connections that the web-based apps just don't work. So I've stuck with QB on a MacBookPro and on a desktop iMac. 

Recently Intuit seems to have decided to shift everything to web-based subscriptions. And as I've noted elsewhere on this site, Mac versions of QB don't seem to be keeping up with the PC versions. So maybe online versions are the way of the future - then find one that has the features you need and you can afford. (Free is always nice. ;^) )

Hi Michael -

Like Alan G, I've been using desktop QB on my iMac for several years with no problems. However, Intuit has always favored the Windows version when it comes to new features and bug fixes. Lately, it looks like they are "encouraging" the switch to online subscription which may mean a desktop version may not be available in the future. (Side note: I don't always have access to a good Internet connection, which is why I don't like being forced to a subscription.)

Parallels or Fusion will work, but my experience is that you need a lot of RAM on the desktop system and a fairly fast, current Mac with multiple processors.

I was introduced to an RE accounting company who also has a QB training class - they say they've tried other online products but still like QB for all it has.

And I have used a QB consultant in the past to help me through some gaps in my knowledge.

Not sure this answered your question - to me, there are no clear-cut answers, unfortunately.

Thanks, Dmitriy - that explains why I could never find any reference on how to handle the expenses. ;^)