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The annual legal update at the local board of realtors was today, and Gov Hutchison, our lead CAR attorney, had a few items that are new this year:

1. Many builders have been including an extra fee to the builder for every time the house sells in the future.  That’s right – every subsequent sale after the first has a "private transfer fee" attached to it, ranging from 0.1% to 1.75% of the sales price.  Santaluz, for example, has a 0.25% tax on every sale.

From the CAR website:

Under current law, a developer can impose a private transfer fee for subsequent sales of the real property.  The developer often creates a separate entity to receive these fees and uses these fees for environmental compliance, or to mitigate ongoing costs incurred with the development of the property.  These fees must be disclosed under current law.

Effective January 1, 2008, AB 980 requires that any person or entity who will impose or has in the past imposed a private transfer fee must in order to continue to receive payment of the fee, record both the instrument creating the transfer fee and a separate notice of “Payment of Transfer Fee Required” in the county recorders office in the county where the property is located.  Private transfer fees are typically created by developers to be used for environmental compliance or to mitigate ongoing costs incurred with the development of the property. 

Lennar, plus five other builders, were found to be doing this practice by his staff.  If you are buying a house built in the last 4-8 years, make sure you read the fine print! (I’m still checking on the other five)

2.  If an investor makes an offer on a property in foreclosure, and the sellers live in the house, a special contract is needed that gives the sellers a five-day recission period.

3.  The "Anti-Escondido Law" went into effect, prohibiting any landlord from being able to screen potential tenants based on their citizenship, or lack thereof.  You can only ask to see a form of government ID.

4.  When a meeting is called by a HOA, not only do they have to notify the residents of time and date, but they also have to publish the agenda.

5.  Effective January 1, 2008, pursuant to AB 840, which was a bill sponsored by the Department of Real Estate (DRE) and supported by C.A.R., the DRE may suspend or otherwise discipline the license of any real estate broker or salesperson who commits any felony or crime “substantially related to the qualifications, functions or duties of a real estate agent”.  Prior to this law the DRE could discipline agents only for misdemeanor crimes that involved “moral turpitude”.  Now, all misdemeanors committed in California are potentially grounds for discipline against real estate licensees as long as it is related to the qualifications, functions or duties of an agent.

6.  He also noted that it is now illegal to bribe an appraiser.

The last time I saw Gov, which was a few years ago, I asked him about whether the listing agent has to present all offers.  He confirmed that they don’t - if the offer is deemed frivolous, it doesn’t have to be presented. 

If you make an offer through Klinge Realty, I’ll make sure the seller knows about it!

Posted on Monday, February 25th, 2008 at 11:45 PM in Thinking of Buying?, Thinking of Selling? | 7 Comments » |  Print You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.