Combs LawGroup PC is currently seeking a highly motivated Real Estate Associate with 2-4years experience in residential/commercial transactions and litigation. Candidates must have exceptional academic credentials along with strong oral,written and computer skills. The firm offers a competitive salary and acomplete benefit package.
Qualified candidates should e-mail their resumein confidence to jerri@combslawgroup.com.
Question: My husband will be teaching as a visiting professor at Cambridge University in England next year. Our plan is to return to Arizona after one year so we will be renting our home in Chandler. We do not want to rent to smokers because we do not want the smell of smoke in our home when we return. A potential renter, whose brother is an attorney says that we must rent to her even though she is a smoker because smokers have equal housing rights. What are the Arizona landlord tenant laws regarding smoker’s rights?
Answer: No. When I’m asked about the rights of smokers, I am reminded of Ted Danson’s line in the movie Body Heat when, after everyone else in a conference room lights up a cigarette and he is offered one, he says, “No, thanks. I’ll just breathe the air!” Smokers are not a protected class such as race, sex, or familial status under the Fair Housing laws, and you are entitled to refuse to rent to smokers. Likewise, landlords can discriminate against college students, unrelated single adults, and illegal aliens, provided that the real reason for the discrimination is not based on the prospective tenant being a member of a protected class such as race or religion.
Question: I would like to use most of the money that I inherited from my grandmother to buy investment homes at foreclosure sales. Recently, I bought my first investment home at a foreclosure sale. I then decided to form a limited liability company (“LLC”), and I transferred the title to this investment home into the LLC to avoid personal liability. In the next month I plan on purchasing three more investment homes. Should I then transfer the title to these three investment homes into the already established LLC, or should I have a separate LLC for each investment home?
Answer: You should have a separate “single asset” LLC for each investment home. The reason for this is that, if one of the investment homes turns into a “rotten apple” the other investment homes will not be affected. Take for example, if one of the the investment homes has mold, and the tenant and the tenant’s family are severely injured by this mold, many insurance companies will not cover, or will severely restrict, mold claims. The cost of forming an LLC is minimal in comparison to the potential liability, and, unlike corporations, after formation of the LLC there is generally no government involvement. In another good example, a developer owned twenty buildable lots, and the developer placed each of these lots in a “single asset” LLC. After building and selling homes on each of these twenty lots, one of the lots had a severe soil settling problem. Although the LLC that owned that particular lot had significant liability, none of the LLCs that owned the other nineteen lots were affected.
Question: We stopped making payments on our Scottsdale home 10 months ago and moved into an apartment in Chandler. Currently, the home is in mortgage default and is sitting vacant. We are just waiting for our mortgage lender to foreclose. Currently, our homeowner’s insurance is set to expire next month. We were wondering who would be responsible for any damage to the home when our homeowner’s insurance expires? Additionally, we continue to receive monthly bills from our homeowners’ association (“HOA”) even though we have moved out. Do we have to pay the HOA monthly bills even though we no longer live in the home?
Answer: Until the title to the home is transferred to the mortgage lender or to a third-party bidder, the homeowner is responsible for the condition of the home. Many mortgage lenders will voluntarily continue to keep homeowner’s insurance on the home, you must contact your insurance agent and confirm that until the foreclosure sale is final that the homeowner’s insurance on the home will continue. Inasmuch as most homeowner’s insurance policies provide for termination of coverage if the home is vacant for a certain period of time, e.g., thirty days, you must immediately contact your insurance agent to add an abandonment endorsement to your homeowner’s insurance policy and pay whatever the fee is.
Finally, you should continue to pay your HOA dues. HOA dues are the personal liability of the homeowner until the transfer of title to the home. This transfer of title must be bona fide. Although homeowners have attempted to avoid payment of the HOA monthly dues by recording a deed transferring title from themselves to someone like Barack Obama or John McCain, this type of deed is obviously not bona fide.
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