Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
He served at the Pentagon as an army jag. He
graduated from Notre Dame and has two law degrees from
Boston University and Georgetown University. He's been practicing law for
over thirty years. He's your family's personal attorney. It's time
for the David Carrier Show.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Hello, and welcome to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier,
your family's personal attorney, and you have found a place
where we talk about estate planning, elder law, real estate
and business law. That's right. So, if you have a question, comment,
or concern about wills trust for probate, if you're wondering,
how do we beat the high cost of long term care,
(00:41):
how do we beat that? I don't know, it's not
that hard. Actually six six seven seven four twenty four
twenty four. That's six one six seven seven four twenty
four twenty four. And we'll get your question, comment or
concern on the air. The thing, you know, here's the
other thing. Oh, you can also email me. Yeah, email
(01:02):
me David at Davidcarrier Law dot com and go to
the website. You know, I've been talking about this for
the last few months, and I'll tell you you know,
people think with this artificial intelligence stuff, oh, you know,
artificial intelligence is going to be like the terminator or
it's going to solve all our problems. Well I don't
(01:23):
think that, all right. I don't think it's gonna be
the terminator either. It's just not that, you know, it's
not that smart whatever. You know, there's there's issues with it. Okay,
no question, but I will I will tell you that
for the last several months, we've had AI assistant artificial
assistant on the on the website and so far a
(01:45):
couple of thousand people have used it. They've gone over and,
you know, and ask questions what about this? What about that?
And I'm not saying that those answers are definitive because
they're not or it's not legal advice. You wouldn't draft
documents based on on what the AI assistant is telling you.
But if and it talks to you too, I mean
(02:06):
that's a that's a new feature. But if you have
a question what about this world? You know, it's helpful.
Put it that way. It's helpful, you know, instead of
having to click all around the website, Oh what's this?
What's that? You know? Where do I find this? Where
do I find that. You ask the AI, the AI assistant,
(02:27):
it takes you right there. Okay, so that would be
I would get over to the website if I was.
You just just check it out, you know, give it
a give it a whirl. It doesn't cost anything, of course,
and it's a way for you to sort of see
what it is we're doing. Because I'll tell you, the
world is not getting simpler. That is, that's not do
(02:51):
I have to tell you that. Did you think that
the world was getting more simple? All right, it's not.
It's just you know, in this big Utiful Bill act
that we had, oh my goodness, and we're still you know,
I did a deal with the radio station to say, hey,
you know, let me do some big beautiful bill. You know,
we'll do some thirty second stuff whatever. And you know,
(03:14):
if you're going to do a job, you want to
do it right. And there is just so much in
that thing to talk about. It's very difficult to figure out. Okay, well,
what's more, you know, going through the process, you know,
just trying to figure out, okay, what should we do,
what would people be interested in, what's going to be
most helpful? And I'll tell you it's a bigger job
(03:36):
than I had anticipated, a much bigger job. So anyway,
eventually we'll get there. But the world just get more complex,
and we can pretend that it isn't. But the fact
of the matter is that how you interact with it,
how you deal with it, is going to make a
big difference, first and foremost in your own life, and
then secondly, secondly for the kids. Okay. And then this
(03:58):
is why, you know, when whenever we look at something,
you know, when people call it like aj had called
in about his uncle, Well, there's a very easy answer
to that. Oh, you're all fine, you got pay on
death beneficiaries. The money will go to them. Let's not
worry about it, okay. And that is I believe probably
(04:18):
nine tenths of the response you're going to get. It's
not the way I look at it at all, because
you know, if you've got if you've got the two
hundred thousand and you're ninety one years old and you're
in assisted living, the military veteran, he's getting his retirement
pay and all the rest of it. That guy did
(04:39):
a lot. He did a lot, and he can leave
a significant benefit to the people he loves, His brother
and sister. Okay, he can. He has the power to
do that if you use the correct tools. But if
you don't use the correct tools, then it's all it's
just gone, you see. And you know, you have to
(05:03):
make some assumptions about what's going to happen in the future. Okay,
ninety year old people, are they more or less likely
to need long term care? Well, guess what. The older
you get, the more likely it is. It's just numbers.
And so if you're not planning for that, if you're
not thinking about that, if you just want to be
in denial about that, well, okay, you know you talk
(05:23):
about denial. I mean, we've got cases where mom died
back in the nineties, the nineteen nineties, okay, and now
a generation later, we're just trying to Now we're going
through probate. Now, we're trying to figure out, well, who
gets what and how does it go? And you know,
and it's not one or two cases where people, you know,
(05:46):
you just put it off and it's like, well, shoot,
what are the tax consequences, what are the there's just
so much now, so much more. It has been so
much easier to have taken care of it up front.
But then people say, well, you know, we lived in
the house for thirty years. I mean, what's the problem, God,
what's the problem? You know? Okay, See, because I'm not
(06:10):
saying that things don't work out sometimes, I'm not saying
that you can't get away with stuff. That's another consequence
of the system being so complex that lots of folks
doesn't affect them because they do stuff which will eventually have,
you know, bad consequences for other people. But it worked
(06:32):
for them, you know, so they got away with that.
And what I'm saying here is when you plan ahead,
when you do it correctly, of course, what I consider correctly,
then you know you got no worries. Everything everything does
actually actually does work out. Okay. But but it's not
(06:53):
something you can't just count on the world to make
its way for you, you know what I mean. It does
don't work like that, Like there's very little think about
this in your own life. Okay. What have you ever seen,
whether it's a party or education or a project that
(07:15):
you worked on, something you did around the yard, right,
you know, people drive past the garden, Oh, look at
the lovely garden, right, and the gardener knows just how
much work went into producing that. Look, there was a
there's a house nearby. Pass just passed it yesterday, and
(07:36):
the people who lived in it twenty years ago, twenty
five years ago, it was like in the Grand Rapids Press.
It was the most beautiful house. Blah blah. It's still
beautiful and it's still nice, okay, but nobody's doing the
thousands of daffodils and all the flowers and all that's
all just gone. It's just grass now, you know, to
find grass. But you know the work that went into
(08:00):
producing something that was really outstanding, really wonderful. Right, it
didn't happen by accident. Now, they put the they what
do you call they group the flowers, they naturalized right
in such a way that you would look, you would
look at that, oh, look a natural field of daffodils. Right,
(08:21):
there's nothing natural about it. It was a lot of
work to make it happen, okay, But the effect the end,
at the end of it looked beautiful. It was beautiful.
It was wonderful. And my point is, very few, very
few things think about your life, very few things just
work out. Very few things when you take the easy route,
(08:44):
does it turn out to be as good as you
as you wish it was right. I mean, you know,
I'm not saying that you can't find a dollar in
the street. You know, Charlie and the chocolate factory worked
that farm, right. I mean, it's not like you can't
find and you know, coins in the couch. But try
buying groceries with it, right, Try living your life based
(09:07):
on luck. It doesn't. Generally speaking, it doesn't work that way.
Everything you see that's worth having, at least this has
been my experience. Everything you have that's worth having is
the product of work and planning, and mostly work, I
(09:30):
have to say, but the planning goes a long way.
I mean, think about think about projects that you've done
right where God knows, this is my issue, where things
would have been a lot issue, a lot easier if
you just planned ahead a little bit right, and we
still get the job done. But it's twice as much
work because you didn't if you put a little thought
(09:50):
into it before you went, you know, you went to
do it. But my point is that it's either hard
work or it's planning, and generally it's planning plus hard work.
But but it certainly isn't luck, and it isn't just
let it go right, It isn't simple. When we get back,
I'll be I'll be issue I'll be issuing, I'll be
answering some of those questions that we've gotten, you know,
(10:14):
specific facts. I'll get off the philosophy. Sorry, but that's
what we'll be doing when we get back. In the meantime,
you've been listening to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier,
your family's personal attorney, inviting you to one of our
three Secrets workshops. These are the workshops we do every
week the Good Lord brings and twice on Sundays.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
This hour of the David Carrier Show is pro bono,
So call in now at seven seven four twenty four
twenty four. This is the David Carrier Show.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Welcome back to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier,
your family's personal attorney. So as I promise, well, if
you call me at six one six seven seven four
twenty four twenty four. That's six one six seven seven
four two four four twenty four to twenty four, then
we'll get your question, comment or concern on the air. Okay.
(11:07):
In the meantime, got to listen to me. Sorry, maybe
that's the way it works, but we would love to
hear from you. You can also go to the website
Davidcarrier Law dot com and at Davidcarrier law dot com
you'll be greeted unless you have a pop up blocker on,
so take off your pop up blocker if you want
to talk to the AI guy and you can ask
(11:28):
questions there and again that doesn't cost you anything. And
on the website you can also sign up for one
of our three Secrets workshops. These are the three secrets
that nobody wants you to know. They're not really secret.
You've been listening to me for a while, you probably
know all of them. But in general, I mean, these
are the things that most people just don't recognize. So
(11:49):
come to a three Secrets workshop you'll be glad you did. Okay,
So I think I've covered everything I inherited one. Here's
the question. I inherited one third of a house. I
want to sell my third and retire. How can I
do that if the other two property owners want me
out see above. But my home was inherited by me
(12:09):
and my two older kids. I cannot afford my third
of maintenance and taxes can I force my kids to
buy me? But at value? At least I think that's
what it means, because by me put at value, I
think it means. But anyway, long story short, it depends.
Oh there's a chakra. Huh A lawyer answer that begins
(12:30):
with it depends. See, if you've got tenants in common
one third owners as tenants in common, right, which is
a way of ownership, which means that you own your
one third, all right, but the other ones owned their
one thirds as well. The alternative is joint tenancy, and
you can have joint tenancy. That's just straight up joint tenancy.
(12:52):
And if you try to sell your joint tenancy now
and it breaks it into a tenants in common situation, right,
But if you have joint tenancy with rights of survivorship,
then you can't break it. Now. Here's the deal. So
if your tenants in common, so you own your one
third and it's your one third, right, then oh, in
(13:14):
all cases, you don't have to pay the taxes or
the maintenance. Right, they can't sue you for it. They
don't have no obligation to pay it, right, they've got
to pay. So that's another one of these screwy things
with people who put people on deeds. You you're just
asking for a nightmare as we've got here. But let's
say you own you all own it one third, right,
(13:35):
and you can't get along, then you can do what's
called Now. Remember, if you're joint joint tends with the
rights of survivorship, there's nothing you can do. They can't
force you to pay the in the taxes, and you
can't force a sale. You're totally one hund up the river.
No paddle here come the bears. Forget about it. All right,
(13:56):
you're done. But you can move in the house. You
can move your biker gang into the house. Right Because
you're a joint tenant, you get to use it just
as much as anybody else does, all right, So you
can have a real you know, have fields in McCoy's
issue there, you know, real family feud. If you want
to with the joint tenancy, joint tendency, rights the survivorship.
(14:16):
Remember if you do it just the joint tenancy, if
it doesn't say rights the survivorship on it. And you
try that malarkey, you know, you try to you put
it in a trust or something like that, you're breaking
the joint tenancy, and now it's tenants in common case
where you each own your own share individually well with
the individual shares. If you are tenants in common, then
(14:40):
then you can go to court and do what's called
a partition action. Now, back in the day when they
would leave the farm to twelve kids, right, the partition
was you get because acres aren't all fungible. Right, dollars
are dollars a dollar, but an acre of real estate
is not an acre because it might be wet land,
(15:02):
it might be really good land, it might be this,
it might be swamp. Who knows, who knows, right, So
the partition action was, we're going to go to court
and we're going to figure out how many acres you
get and how many acres you get so that the
values are all the same the modern day. That's back
in the day. Modern day. What you're doing is you're
(15:22):
requiring a sale, and everybody gets the proceeds from the sale.
But you have to prove that you can't get along.
You have to prove that there's no meaningful use of
the property that can be done as tenants in common, Okay,
which you know it's not really all that hard but
here's the thing. You could theoretically, here's the other thing,
(15:44):
so you can go to court right force the sale.
Everybody gets their share. That's ugly, et cetera, expensive, et cetera, cetera.
You could sell your one third to somebody else. You
could do that, but let me tell you, I have
had no success thirty five years of doing this, no
success ever. I don't even try anymore. So it's I
(16:05):
give up probably ten or fifteen years ago. You can't
sell a one third interest to anybody. Nobody wants to
buy it. They're just buying a lawsuit, okay. And if
you could sell it to somebody understanding that they're buying
a lawsuit or action for partition, right, that's what they're
buying with it, that's what they're paying for. It's the
value is so minimal, right that they're willing to pay.
(16:28):
It's just it's ridiculous. Okay. So you're not going to
get you're not going to be able to retire. So
let's say it's a six hundred thousand dollars house and
oh boy, I got two hundred thousand dollars. Well, Medicaid
would agree with you, right under the medicaid rules. They
think you've got two hundred thousand dollars in the bank.
Guess what. You don't have two hundred thousand dollars in
the bank. What you have is a one third interest.
(16:49):
You've got is a family feud, terrible lawsuit, the whole
nine yards, that's what you've got. So, if you are
thinking about putting multiple people on a deed, Dear God,
please repent of your evil doing. All right, well, well
well let's let's be uh, let's be fair about this.
I mean, if you if you really wanted to cause
(17:12):
family discord, disharmony, you know, and put put everybody at
each other's throkes, even parents and kids, then yeah, then
put them all on the deed together. I guess that
makes sense. You probably achieve your goal. You you, Cruela Daville,
You you know, really think about that. If you're Cruela
Daville and you just want to leave the most mayhem
(17:33):
when you're dead, yeah, put your spouse and your kids
on the deed. Oh that's a great idea. How are
you kidding me? And people do it all the time.
They do it all the time because they think, oh,
you know, this way my spouse can live there. Yeah,
well so can the kids live there? Anyway? The point is, uh,
this is a this is a mess, and this is
(17:55):
a mess. Right. Are there things that can be done?
Not if it's a joy tendancy with rights and survivorship. No,
there's nothing that can be done. If it's tenants in
common right where it doesn't say join tenancy or it
doesn't say rights, the survivorship right just has all the names.
Then you could drag your kids into court everybody, pay
(18:16):
a lawyers a bunch of money, you know, and eventually
sell it for less than it's worth because it's in
a court sale. Right, you can do that, which of
course has the benefit of paying lawyers lots of money.
What am I saying? That's fantastic. Okay, let's everybody put
everybody on the deed. That'd be great. Yeah, you'll avoid
probate at the cost of having your family at each
(18:41):
other's throats. But it's all good for the lawyers, right
because we'll make a ton of money sueing everybody. Yay,
Why didn't I see that silver lining sooner? Well, anyway,
don't do this, please me. There's other things that there's
other things to be done, and you know, sorting this
kind of thing out. Nobody likes it. Nobody likes paying
(19:02):
the bill. I gotta tell you you think anybody likes
paying the bill when they're fighting their kids or your parent.
Nobody likes it. Let's see six one six, seven, seven
four twenty four, twenty four. That's the number to call,
and uh go to the website Davidcarrier Law dot com
because at Davidcarrier Law dot com you get that AI agent,
(19:25):
which is not legal advice. Not legal advice, that's not
what it is. But it is a good tool to
get the conversation started, you know, and you can ask
it questions. It's got you know, it's been trained on
our stuff, right, so it's pretty you know what it
says is is not bad. But remember it's it's more
like the radio show. It's more like, oh I heard
(19:47):
this on the radio. Oh I heard this from the AI.
Does that mean you should go put people on a
deed because you heard it? No, No, it doesn't. I
mean it's not what this is. It's a conversation and
that's what that is. It's a conversation starter. You've been
listening to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier, your
family's personal attorney.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
David's got the how too you're looking for. Just call
seven seven twenty four twenty four. This is the David
Carrier Show.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Welcome back to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier,
your family's personal attorney. Now is the time give us
a call sixty one six seven seven four twenty four
twenty four. That's sixty one six seven seven four twenty
four twenty four. Will get your question, comment or concern
on the air. It's that easy. Plus it doesn't even
(20:39):
cost you anything. So there you go. I mean, how
much better? How much better does it get than that? Well,
you could go to the AI assistant, the artificial intelligence
assistant over there on our website. And because if you
were over there right then you wouldn't even have to
Well you could talk to the thing because it does
do that. Or you can go one one of the
(21:00):
things that we've got, you know, so you can you know,
we've got some frequently asked questions, you know, so you
just ask. But you could also put your own information in,
say hey, what do you think of this? It's really
pretty neat. I mean, it doesn't catch you anything. You
might as well give it a try. Why not. That's
a Davidcarrier Law dot com. And that's where you can
(21:20):
sign up for one of our workshops, the Three Secrets workshops.
You know, it's a step, it's a step in the
right direction. Now, I promised I would get to some
meadi legal questions that people have had. Can I give
my brother a lease for a house I own to
prove his residency even if he's not going to live there. Ah,
(21:42):
I inherited a house my mother left me. That's nice.
My father lives there, which is fine, Oh generous. My
brother is storing some things there, hmm, could be problematic.
He wants a lease from me to prove his residency
in Florida. So this house is in Florida, I guess,
even though he's not going to live in the state.
(22:03):
What he said, it's to get a new license with
this address so he can keep his doctors in Florida.
A new license, a new what driver's license? I guess,
so he can keep his doctors in Florida. I'm concerned
there is more to it. Yeah, no kidding, there's more
to it. He's committing fraud. Can you advise, yes, don't
(22:24):
do fraud. All right, if you got a lie, it's
probably a bad that's that's a bad idea. Okay, not
in not into the lying, Okay, And that's probably that's
that's what's going on. I mean, do his brother wanted
so he can get his Disney World Florida residents discount?
Is that what he's trying to do? The key is
you don't know. You don't know what the hell he's doing.
(22:47):
And and and even if it was for what he said,
he's like, oh, I want to prove I'm a Florida
resident because I have doctors in Florida. I guess on
a medical plan or something. Okay, So what is it?
Here we go, here's law school one O one. What
do we call it when somebody lies in order to
(23:09):
get a benefit from somebody else? Okay, we call that
fraud larceny by trick sometime in the old days. Right,
it's fraud. And he's asking you to participate in fraud.
So why would you? Why would you do that?
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Come on, says it's just a it's just the little least.
What's the problem. Oh come on, please right, forget about it.
You got nothing. Right, it's fraud. You're right, okay, if
you thought this was snaky and underhanded and whatnot, you're
(23:49):
probably right, all right. If you say that he lives
someplace where you know he doesn't live, now you're participating
in the fraud. Why would you do that? You wouldn't,
so don't okay? Uh, that that was easy, right, that
was an easy one. One are my legal rights to
a piece of property that my family let me live
in without a contract as long as I fixed it up.
(24:11):
What so your family lets you live in the house
so long as you fix it up, and there's no contract,
So as soon as you're fixing it up, they're going
to give you the heave ho. Right, they're gonna boot
you out. I mean, that's that's what I would read
from that, right. Well, here's more details. My wife and
I have lived in an old farmhouse that my wife's
(24:31):
family owns for about three years. For three years you've
been living there, they were going to tear it down
for a rent was free if we invested in fixing it. Okay,
So you're rented it. Over that course of time, we've
been invested roughly fifty thousand dollars to keep the house
from falling down, but it's gotten to a point we
cannot live in the house while we continue to fix it.
(24:51):
So it sounds sounds like you made a bad deal, right.
We bought a house and the family is now slandering
us and saying we have ruined property. Well, I'd like
to look at it first, you know what I mean.
I mean, there are all kinds of We used to
call them shade tree mechanics, right back when you could
fix a car in the shade of the tree. But
(25:14):
there are a lot of shade tree carpenters, you know,
a lot of handy handy experts out there. And you
may think that you put a lot of work into it,
and because you put a lot of work into it,
it's really good work, and someone else look at it
and just be astounded. Despite so they're slandering as well.
You know, it's a defense to slander if it's true. Okay,
(25:37):
said we've ruined the property, despite them saying they wanted
to tear it down before we moved in, they now
say that they can fix up the property and rent
it out based off the work we've already done. Well,
that was kind of the deal, wasn't it. Do I
just need to cut my losses. You mean cut your losses.
You made a deal to fix it up if you
could stay in it. You fixed it up while you
(25:58):
were staying in it. That's the deal. Do I need
to cut my losses? Do we have legal standing for
adding value to the property? We no longer want any
relationship with this family regardless due to this land or
they put on my wife. What maybe she's not a
good carpenter. I don't know. So we also don't want
them to capitalize off our losses. Well, I don't know
(26:19):
what it would cost. I mean fifty thousand dollars, so
that's fifteen thousand dollars a year. So that's roughly twelve
hundred dollars a month, right, I don't know what you
can rent for twelve hundred bucks a month wherever it
is you live. Maybe it wasn't such a bad deal.
I don't know. But for sure, whenever it comes to
(26:41):
real estate, okay, any contract in real estate has to
be in writing, because if it's not in writing, okay,
then you don't have a contract. You don't have anything.
So that's the deal. How can a judge make a
(27:02):
ruling on a common shared deeded easement that caters and
benefits only one party and harms the other. See, right
off the bat, you know that this is going to
be a wasted effort, right because if you want to ask,
how can a judge? You know, that's what it starts.
How can a judge? All right, any question starts out
how can a judge? The answer is because he's a
(27:25):
judge or she's a judge. Whatever. But but let's dig
a little deeper into this insanity, all right. Twenty one
years ago, all parties to a common recorded shared easement
agreed to plant decorative landscaping along the driveway to improve
the aesthetics of the community entrance. These mature trees as
landscaping are now valued at over five thousand dollars each.
(27:47):
And there's ten of them. It's fifty thousand dollars. Wow,
that was that was a number in the last one.
It's another fifty thousand dollars. Last week, one trouble making
Karen demanded that an entire row of mature, twenty foot
tall decorative white myrtles be cut down, and a judge
ordered it so x party to two of the other
(28:07):
needed parties. None of the other three d holders want this.
How can a court favor one person when four families
are involved. Trees have not been bothering anyone for twenty
one years. How do we stop them from cutting them down?
This affects the aesthetics of the real estate of the
other three parties as it's at the entrance. Hell, okay,
so here's the here's the thing. It kind of depends
(28:32):
right on what the easement says. You've got how many trees?
Ten trees? I love this, approximately ten of them? What
was approximately ten trees? Is that eleven trees or is
it nine? I don't know. Anyway, approximately ten trees. And
apparently this person thinks it makes it look wonderful and
(28:53):
somebody else the Karen trouble making Karen, you know she
doesn't think so well. I don't know. I mean, what
would a real railroad what would a roadway engineer say
if somebody comes out and says, hey, you know, you
get these beautiful myrtles here, but they're not so beautiful
and they need to be cut down because they're impeding
(29:14):
traffic flow or visual or whatever. You know what I mean.
I mean, you can get into that and it kind
of makes you wonder what exactly the easement says, right,
was it a It just depends. I mean, you've got
to read these things. You can't you can't can't tell you.
But here apparently some of the some of the some
(29:35):
of the parties were there, some were not. Bottom line,
if the judge says so, you're probably stuck, that will
be his interpretation of the easement and the and the
use under the easement. But that's without looking at anything.
Even listening to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier,
your family's personal.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Attorney, David and working and taking your calls. Now this
is the David car Your Show.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Welcome back to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier
still and yes, Alardie, I'll take crazy real estate questions
for five hundred. You remember earlier we had the one
where the dad wanted to sell the property because he
was with the kids, right because his wife put all
three of them on there, and it's like, oh, you know,
(30:27):
I picked it because it's kind of bizarre question. Right, Well,
here's another one. How did my father's name get taken
off the deed? My father and siblings inherited a house
from their mom, when trying to sell the house, they
couldn't find my father? How hard did they look? So
they got his name taken off and sold it. Just
wondering if that is something they can do well right
(30:49):
off the bat, No, it's not something they can do.
There's different ways, but there are ways to do it.
I mean they could have forged his name. I suppose
that could have happened, you know, just get somebody from
a shelter and whatever. Let's not go that way. That
would be total fraud. Well, you know what they could
(31:10):
have done. I mean, it would be possible to sell
the property. You go to court and you do an
action to determine interest in land or something like that,
where where or in order for sale? Right, you could
do that. That's not impossible. But here's the thing. The
(31:33):
father survived the mom. See this is the again. Let
me back up a little bit. When you get a
property right and you're inheriting a property, you don't want
to inherit a property with anybody else's name on it. Okay,
it's an absolute problem. Right. Have you ever gotten like
(31:56):
paint on your fingers? Like varnish is the worst? You
get varnished on your fingers and then everything you touched
it's got varnish on it, and it's like you can't
get rid of the stuff. It's just terrible. And this
is like that, I mean, it's like it's the worst.
You get everybody's name on it. And here's the other
problem with doing it like this. The other problem is
(32:18):
who's going to sell the property? You see, you never
want to You never, ever, ever, ever want to get
your name on a piece of property coming out of
an estate, unless it's yours the only name on the
property and you really want to live in that property,
or it's a cottage or something like that. Okay, if
this thing is going to get sold, you don't you
(32:42):
sell it out of the estate. You sell it out
of the estate. You have the trust sell it, you
have the probate estate. Sell it. Okay, that's how you
do it, because at the end of the day, you're
only going to have money, right at least you hope
you only have money. But what if you take the property? Okay,
(33:02):
thank you, now I got the property, and then you
turn around and sell it and you think, well that's
better because now I don't have to deal with the
probate cord or my rotten sister who's the executor or
something like. You think that's good. Well, let me ask you.
If you're the seller of the property and something goes sideways,
who do you think the buyer is looking for the
(33:24):
answer is they're looking for you, because you were the seller.
And it's even worse if you've got half a dozen
people on that stupid deed, because now you've got to
negotiate to say you got to. Everybody's got to agree,
and there are spouses of course, have to agree, and
whoever else they think their guru has to agree. Okay,
So now you got to get all these people to
(33:45):
agree to do it because you deed it out. They're
all on the deed, all right. It only takes one
of them to totally scotch the deal. So that's terrible.
So you don't And if the buyer is unhappy, who
do they sue?
Speaker 1 (34:00):
Right?
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Look, you're got you got four deadbeat siblings and you okay,
then they and they buy the house and it turns
out there's termites or PIFAs or esbestos, or they just
don't like the property anymore. The hot tub doesn't worry.
I don't know, whatever it is whatever it is, and
they decide that you, the sellers, are at fault, and
(34:22):
now they come back and sue you, you and your
four deadbeat siblings. Who do you think they're gonna get
the money from? Okay, you don't do this. Have it
sold out of the estate and take the money. Okay.
Then if they're gonna sue somebody or the trust, either
(34:43):
or the trust right and take the money. Let them
sue the trust. Let them sue the estate. It's closed,
there's no assets, go away, right, But you're not. You
didn't sign the buy sell agreement, you didn't sign the deed,
you didn't sign the seller's disclosure statement, you didn't sign
any Okay. So when I hear about people, you know, oh,
(35:05):
I'm gonna put my kids on the d o ladybird,
d oh ladybrided is such a great idea. It's like,
oh my god, you see this is what I taught.
When I'm talking about people getting away with stuff, this
is what I'm talking about. It's like, I'm not saying
it never works. I'm never I'm not saying you know
it couldn't work. What I am saying is you have
(35:25):
no reason. No, no, you got no backup, you got
no reason for thinking that will work. Maybe it works. Okay,
that's great, you got away with it. Hurrah for you,
you know, wonderful, oh and associated. But and then what
happens when they get away with it? They keep repeating it,
you know, like this is this is what actually, this
(35:48):
is what actually happens. Okay, Now, in this case with
the father's name taken off the deed, right, if they
did go to court and they got an order for sale,
they should have taken his share of the money. And
if they can't find him, they can't find him, right,
let's assume that that's what happened, then they need to
pay that into the state. Right, so the state of
(36:10):
Michigan should have that money, right, if they did it correctly,
because just because he died, you know what did they say,
what he disappeared? Martians took him? No, he died, Well,
then are you their heir? The heirs? And if these
kids whose name were on the deed did go through probate,
(36:31):
then the kid who's writing the letter should have gotten
notice of that. Do you see see how screwy this is.
It's it's kind of screwy. The only correct way this
would have been done, is his share of the money
would have gone to the state. They are held on
to it for a year, and if they can't find
him in a year, then they pay it to the
then they pay it to the to the state. It's
(36:52):
used to the state. So that's what that's what should
have happened. If this is on the up and up.
And if it's not on the up and up, well
it's not on the up and up. And now they
get sued and now more full employment for lawyers. Ain't that?
Ain't that wonderful? Okay, let let's get another one. Let's
see I rented property for twelve years now and I
(37:15):
kept the maintaining an empty lot. No one has ever
been maintaining it, so I called that name of property
and taxes owed. There are a thousand dollars behind and
I haven't paid since two thousand and nine. Two thousand
and nine. What do I pay one thousand dollars in taxes?
Or do adverage possession? I don't even know how you know?
(37:35):
Is the empty lot like adjacent to it or something?
I mean, we don't know. We don't have enough facts here.
But it's fifteen years anyway, and the fact that you
have been maintaining the empty lot if it's adjacent to
the rented property, you know, and the fact that I mean,
there's some things that don't add up here, Like the
idea is that there are a thousand they haven't paid
any taxes in the last twenty six years. That seems
(37:59):
un likely, right, I mean, this seems like impossible. Okay,
it would have been sold for it had been sold
for taxes already, So you don't have any adverse possession
that's fifteen years has to be open, notorious, you can't
have permission to use it. There's a bunch of stuff
here that I don't think you've got. So just just
(38:21):
enjoy the empty lot next to your rented house and
you know, put your picnic table on it. But it's
not likely that you've gotten it's not likely that you've
gotten any title to it. You can probably buy the
tax title from the city. I guess that's what I do.
You've been listening to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier,
looking forward to seeing you at a three Secrets workshop
(38:44):
Big Carrier Law dot com.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
You've been listening to the David Carrier Show A lively
discussion addressing your questions and concerns, but not legal advice.
There is a big difference, so when making decisions that
affect your family, your property, or yourself, the best advice
is to seek good advice specific to your unique needs.
If you missed any of today's show, or would like
additional information about the law offices of David Carrier, please
(39:27):
visit Davidcarrier Law dot com.
He served at the Pentagon as an army jag. He
graduated from Notre Dame and has two law degrees from
Boston University and Georgetown University. He's been practicing law for
over thirty years. He's your family's personal attorney. It's time
for the David Carrier Show.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Hello, and welcome to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier,
your family's personal attorney, and you have found a place
where we talk about estate planning, elder law, real estate
and business law. That's right. So, if you have a question, comment,
or concern about wills trust for probate, if you're wondering,
how do we beat the high cost of long term care,
(00:41):
how do we beat that? I don't know, it's not
that hard. Actually six six seven seven four twenty four
twenty four. That's six one six seven seven four twenty
four twenty four. And we'll get your question, comment or
concern on the air. The thing, you know, here's the
other thing. Oh, you can also email me. Yeah, email
(01:02):
me David at Davidcarrier Law dot com and go to
the website. You know, I've been talking about this for
the last few months, and I'll tell you you know,
people think with this artificial intelligence stuff, oh, you know,
artificial intelligence is going to be like the terminator or
it's going to solve all our problems. Well I don't
(01:23):
think that, all right. I don't think it's gonna be
the terminator either. It's just not that, you know, it's
not that smart whatever. You know, there's there's issues with it. Okay,
no question, but I will I will tell you that
for the last several months, we've had AI assistant artificial
assistant on the on the website and so far a
(01:45):
couple of thousand people have used it. They've gone over and,
you know, and ask questions what about this? What about that?
And I'm not saying that those answers are definitive because
they're not or it's not legal advice. You wouldn't draft
documents based on on what the AI assistant is telling you.
But if and it talks to you too, I mean
(02:06):
that's a that's a new feature. But if you have
a question what about this world? You know, it's helpful.
Put it that way. It's helpful, you know, instead of
having to click all around the website, Oh what's this?
What's that? You know? Where do I find this? Where
do I find that. You ask the AI, the AI assistant,
(02:27):
it takes you right there. Okay, so that would be
I would get over to the website if I was.
You just just check it out, you know, give it
a give it a whirl. It doesn't cost anything, of course,
and it's a way for you to sort of see
what it is we're doing. Because I'll tell you, the
world is not getting simpler. That is, that's not do
(02:51):
I have to tell you that. Did you think that
the world was getting more simple? All right, it's not.
It's just you know, in this big Utiful Bill act
that we had, oh my goodness, and we're still you know,
I did a deal with the radio station to say, hey,
you know, let me do some big beautiful bill. You know,
we'll do some thirty second stuff whatever. And you know,
(03:14):
if you're going to do a job, you want to
do it right. And there is just so much in
that thing to talk about. It's very difficult to figure out. Okay, well,
what's more, you know, going through the process, you know,
just trying to figure out, okay, what should we do,
what would people be interested in, what's going to be
most helpful? And I'll tell you it's a bigger job
(03:36):
than I had anticipated, a much bigger job. So anyway,
eventually we'll get there. But the world just get more complex,
and we can pretend that it isn't. But the fact
of the matter is that how you interact with it,
how you deal with it, is going to make a
big difference, first and foremost in your own life, and
then secondly, secondly for the kids. Okay. And then this
(03:58):
is why, you know, when whenever we look at something,
you know, when people call it like aj had called
in about his uncle, Well, there's a very easy answer
to that. Oh, you're all fine, you got pay on
death beneficiaries. The money will go to them. Let's not
worry about it, okay. And that is I believe probably
(04:18):
nine tenths of the response you're going to get. It's
not the way I look at it at all, because
you know, if you've got if you've got the two
hundred thousand and you're ninety one years old and you're
in assisted living, the military veteran, he's getting his retirement
pay and all the rest of it. That guy did
(04:39):
a lot. He did a lot, and he can leave
a significant benefit to the people he loves, His brother
and sister. Okay, he can. He has the power to
do that if you use the correct tools. But if
you don't use the correct tools, then it's all it's
just gone, you see. And you know, you have to
(05:03):
make some assumptions about what's going to happen in the future. Okay,
ninety year old people, are they more or less likely
to need long term care? Well, guess what. The older
you get, the more likely it is. It's just numbers.
And so if you're not planning for that, if you're
not thinking about that, if you just want to be
in denial about that, well, okay, you know you talk
(05:23):
about denial. I mean, we've got cases where mom died
back in the nineties, the nineteen nineties, okay, and now
a generation later, we're just trying to Now we're going
through probate. Now, we're trying to figure out, well, who
gets what and how does it go? And you know,
and it's not one or two cases where people, you know,
(05:46):
you just put it off and it's like, well, shoot,
what are the tax consequences, what are the there's just
so much now, so much more. It has been so
much easier to have taken care of it up front.
But then people say, well, you know, we lived in
the house for thirty years. I mean, what's the problem, God,
what's the problem? You know? Okay, See, because I'm not
(06:10):
saying that things don't work out sometimes, I'm not saying
that you can't get away with stuff. That's another consequence
of the system being so complex that lots of folks
doesn't affect them because they do stuff which will eventually have,
you know, bad consequences for other people. But it worked
(06:32):
for them, you know, so they got away with that.
And what I'm saying here is when you plan ahead,
when you do it correctly, of course, what I consider correctly,
then you know you got no worries. Everything everything does
actually actually does work out. Okay. But but it's not
(06:53):
something you can't just count on the world to make
its way for you, you know what I mean. It does
don't work like that, Like there's very little think about
this in your own life. Okay. What have you ever seen,
whether it's a party or education or a project that
(07:15):
you worked on, something you did around the yard, right,
you know, people drive past the garden, Oh, look at
the lovely garden, right, and the gardener knows just how
much work went into producing that. Look, there was a
there's a house nearby. Pass just passed it yesterday, and
(07:36):
the people who lived in it twenty years ago, twenty
five years ago, it was like in the Grand Rapids Press.
It was the most beautiful house. Blah blah. It's still
beautiful and it's still nice, okay, but nobody's doing the
thousands of daffodils and all the flowers and all that's
all just gone. It's just grass now, you know, to
find grass. But you know the work that went into
(08:00):
producing something that was really outstanding, really wonderful. Right, it
didn't happen by accident. Now, they put the they what
do you call they group the flowers, they naturalized right
in such a way that you would look, you would
look at that, oh, look a natural field of daffodils. Right,
(08:21):
there's nothing natural about it. It was a lot of
work to make it happen, okay, But the effect the end,
at the end of it looked beautiful. It was beautiful.
It was wonderful. And my point is, very few, very
few things think about your life, very few things just
work out. Very few things when you take the easy route,
(08:44):
does it turn out to be as good as you
as you wish it was right. I mean, you know,
I'm not saying that you can't find a dollar in
the street. You know, Charlie and the chocolate factory worked
that farm, right. I mean, it's not like you can't
find and you know, coins in the couch. But try
buying groceries with it, right, Try living your life based
(09:07):
on luck. It doesn't. Generally speaking, it doesn't work that way.
Everything you see that's worth having, at least this has
been my experience. Everything you have that's worth having is
the product of work and planning, and mostly work, I
(09:30):
have to say, but the planning goes a long way.
I mean, think about think about projects that you've done
right where God knows, this is my issue, where things
would have been a lot issue, a lot easier if
you just planned ahead a little bit right, and we
still get the job done. But it's twice as much
work because you didn't if you put a little thought
(09:50):
into it before you went, you know, you went to
do it. But my point is that it's either hard
work or it's planning, and generally it's planning plus hard work.
But but it certainly isn't luck, and it isn't just
let it go right, It isn't simple. When we get back,
I'll be I'll be issue I'll be issuing, I'll be
answering some of those questions that we've gotten, you know,
(10:14):
specific facts. I'll get off the philosophy. Sorry, but that's
what we'll be doing when we get back. In the meantime,
you've been listening to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier,
your family's personal attorney, inviting you to one of our
three Secrets workshops. These are the workshops we do every
week the Good Lord brings and twice on Sundays.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
This hour of the David Carrier Show is pro bono,
So call in now at seven seven four twenty four
twenty four. This is the David Carrier Show.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Welcome back to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier,
your family's personal attorney. So as I promise, well, if
you call me at six one six seven seven four
twenty four twenty four. That's six one six seven seven
four two four four twenty four to twenty four, then
we'll get your question, comment or concern on the air. Okay.
(11:07):
In the meantime, got to listen to me. Sorry, maybe
that's the way it works, but we would love to
hear from you. You can also go to the website
Davidcarrier Law dot com and at Davidcarrier law dot com
you'll be greeted unless you have a pop up blocker on,
so take off your pop up blocker if you want
to talk to the AI guy and you can ask
(11:28):
questions there and again that doesn't cost you anything. And
on the website you can also sign up for one
of our three Secrets workshops. These are the three secrets
that nobody wants you to know. They're not really secret.
You've been listening to me for a while, you probably
know all of them. But in general, I mean, these
are the things that most people just don't recognize. So
(11:49):
come to a three Secrets workshop you'll be glad you did. Okay,
So I think I've covered everything I inherited one. Here's
the question. I inherited one third of a house. I
want to sell my third and retire. How can I
do that if the other two property owners want me
out see above. But my home was inherited by me
(12:09):
and my two older kids. I cannot afford my third
of maintenance and taxes can I force my kids to
buy me? But at value? At least I think that's
what it means, because by me put at value, I
think it means. But anyway, long story short, it depends.
Oh there's a chakra. Huh A lawyer answer that begins
(12:30):
with it depends. See, if you've got tenants in common
one third owners as tenants in common, right, which is
a way of ownership, which means that you own your
one third, all right, but the other ones owned their
one thirds as well. The alternative is joint tenancy, and
you can have joint tenancy. That's just straight up joint tenancy.
(12:52):
And if you try to sell your joint tenancy now
and it breaks it into a tenants in common situation, right,
But if you have joint tenancy with rights of survivorship,
then you can't break it. Now. Here's the deal. So
if your tenants in common, so you own your one
third and it's your one third, right, then oh, in
(13:14):
all cases, you don't have to pay the taxes or
the maintenance. Right, they can't sue you for it. They
don't have no obligation to pay it, right, they've got
to pay. So that's another one of these screwy things
with people who put people on deeds. You you're just
asking for a nightmare as we've got here. But let's
say you own you all own it one third, right,
(13:35):
and you can't get along, then you can do what's
called Now. Remember, if you're joint joint tends with the
rights of survivorship, there's nothing you can do. They can't
force you to pay the in the taxes, and you
can't force a sale. You're totally one hund up the river.
No paddle here come the bears. Forget about it. All right,
(13:56):
you're done. But you can move in the house. You
can move your biker gang into the house. Right Because
you're a joint tenant, you get to use it just
as much as anybody else does, all right, So you
can have a real you know, have fields in McCoy's
issue there, you know, real family feud. If you want
to with the joint tenancy, joint tendency, rights the survivorship.
(14:16):
Remember if you do it just the joint tenancy, if
it doesn't say rights the survivorship on it. And you
try that malarkey, you know, you try to you put
it in a trust or something like that, you're breaking
the joint tenancy, and now it's tenants in common case
where you each own your own share individually well with
the individual shares. If you are tenants in common, then
(14:40):
then you can go to court and do what's called
a partition action. Now, back in the day when they
would leave the farm to twelve kids, right, the partition
was you get because acres aren't all fungible. Right, dollars
are dollars a dollar, but an acre of real estate
is not an acre because it might be wet land,
(15:02):
it might be really good land, it might be this,
it might be swamp. Who knows, who knows, right, So
the partition action was, we're going to go to court
and we're going to figure out how many acres you
get and how many acres you get so that the
values are all the same the modern day. That's back
in the day. Modern day. What you're doing is you're
(15:22):
requiring a sale, and everybody gets the proceeds from the sale.
But you have to prove that you can't get along.
You have to prove that there's no meaningful use of
the property that can be done as tenants in common, Okay,
which you know it's not really all that hard but
here's the thing. You could theoretically, here's the other thing,
(15:44):
so you can go to court right force the sale.
Everybody gets their share. That's ugly, et cetera, expensive, et cetera, cetera.
You could sell your one third to somebody else. You
could do that, but let me tell you, I have
had no success thirty five years of doing this, no
success ever. I don't even try anymore. So it's I
(16:05):
give up probably ten or fifteen years ago. You can't
sell a one third interest to anybody. Nobody wants to
buy it. They're just buying a lawsuit, okay. And if
you could sell it to somebody understanding that they're buying
a lawsuit or action for partition, right, that's what they're
buying with it, that's what they're paying for. It's the
value is so minimal, right that they're willing to pay.
(16:28):
It's just it's ridiculous. Okay. So you're not going to
get you're not going to be able to retire. So
let's say it's a six hundred thousand dollars house and
oh boy, I got two hundred thousand dollars. Well, Medicaid
would agree with you, right under the medicaid rules. They
think you've got two hundred thousand dollars in the bank.
Guess what. You don't have two hundred thousand dollars in
the bank. What you have is a one third interest.
(16:49):
You've got is a family feud, terrible lawsuit, the whole
nine yards, that's what you've got. So, if you are
thinking about putting multiple people on a deed, Dear God,
please repent of your evil doing. All right, well, well
well let's let's be uh, let's be fair about this.
I mean, if you if you really wanted to cause
(17:12):
family discord, disharmony, you know, and put put everybody at
each other's throkes, even parents and kids, then yeah, then
put them all on the deed together. I guess that
makes sense. You probably achieve your goal. You you, Cruela Daville,
You you know, really think about that. If you're Cruela
Daville and you just want to leave the most mayhem
(17:33):
when you're dead, yeah, put your spouse and your kids
on the deed. Oh that's a great idea. How are
you kidding me? And people do it all the time.
They do it all the time because they think, oh,
you know, this way my spouse can live there. Yeah,
well so can the kids live there? Anyway? The point is, uh,
this is a this is a mess, and this is
(17:55):
a mess. Right. Are there things that can be done?
Not if it's a joy tendancy with rights and survivorship. No,
there's nothing that can be done. If it's tenants in
common right where it doesn't say join tenancy or it
doesn't say rights, the survivorship right just has all the names.
Then you could drag your kids into court everybody, pay
(18:16):
a lawyers a bunch of money, you know, and eventually
sell it for less than it's worth because it's in
a court sale. Right, you can do that, which of
course has the benefit of paying lawyers lots of money.
What am I saying? That's fantastic. Okay, let's everybody put
everybody on the deed. That'd be great. Yeah, you'll avoid
probate at the cost of having your family at each
(18:41):
other's throats. But it's all good for the lawyers, right
because we'll make a ton of money sueing everybody. Yay,
Why didn't I see that silver lining sooner? Well, anyway,
don't do this, please me. There's other things that there's
other things to be done, and you know, sorting this
kind of thing out. Nobody likes it. Nobody likes paying
(19:02):
the bill. I gotta tell you you think anybody likes
paying the bill when they're fighting their kids or your parent.
Nobody likes it. Let's see six one six, seven, seven
four twenty four, twenty four. That's the number to call,
and uh go to the website Davidcarrier Law dot com
because at Davidcarrier Law dot com you get that AI agent,
(19:25):
which is not legal advice. Not legal advice, that's not
what it is. But it is a good tool to
get the conversation started, you know, and you can ask
it questions. It's got you know, it's been trained on
our stuff, right, so it's pretty you know what it
says is is not bad. But remember it's it's more
like the radio show. It's more like, oh I heard
(19:47):
this on the radio. Oh I heard this from the AI.
Does that mean you should go put people on a
deed because you heard it? No, No, it doesn't. I
mean it's not what this is. It's a conversation and
that's what that is. It's a conversation starter. You've been
listening to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier, your
family's personal attorney.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
David's got the how too you're looking for. Just call
seven seven twenty four twenty four. This is the David
Carrier Show.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Welcome back to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier,
your family's personal attorney. Now is the time give us
a call sixty one six seven seven four twenty four
twenty four. That's sixty one six seven seven four twenty
four twenty four. Will get your question, comment or concern
on the air. It's that easy. Plus it doesn't even
(20:39):
cost you anything. So there you go. I mean, how
much better? How much better does it get than that? Well,
you could go to the AI assistant, the artificial intelligence
assistant over there on our website. And because if you
were over there right then you wouldn't even have to
Well you could talk to the thing because it does
do that. Or you can go one one of the
(21:00):
things that we've got, you know, so you can you know,
we've got some frequently asked questions, you know, so you
just ask. But you could also put your own information in,
say hey, what do you think of this? It's really
pretty neat. I mean, it doesn't catch you anything. You
might as well give it a try. Why not. That's
a Davidcarrier Law dot com. And that's where you can
(21:20):
sign up for one of our workshops, the Three Secrets workshops.
You know, it's a step, it's a step in the
right direction. Now, I promised I would get to some
meadi legal questions that people have had. Can I give
my brother a lease for a house I own to
prove his residency even if he's not going to live there. Ah,
(21:42):
I inherited a house my mother left me. That's nice.
My father lives there, which is fine, Oh generous. My
brother is storing some things there, hmm, could be problematic.
He wants a lease from me to prove his residency
in Florida. So this house is in Florida, I guess,
even though he's not going to live in the state.
(22:03):
What he said, it's to get a new license with
this address so he can keep his doctors in Florida.
A new license, a new what driver's license? I guess,
so he can keep his doctors in Florida. I'm concerned
there is more to it. Yeah, no kidding, there's more
to it. He's committing fraud. Can you advise, yes, don't
(22:24):
do fraud. All right, if you got a lie, it's
probably a bad that's that's a bad idea. Okay, not
in not into the lying, Okay, And that's probably that's
that's what's going on. I mean, do his brother wanted
so he can get his Disney World Florida residents discount?
Is that what he's trying to do? The key is
you don't know. You don't know what the hell he's doing.
(22:47):
And and and even if it was for what he said,
he's like, oh, I want to prove I'm a Florida
resident because I have doctors in Florida. I guess on
a medical plan or something. Okay, So what is it?
Here we go, here's law school one O one. What
do we call it when somebody lies in order to
(23:09):
get a benefit from somebody else? Okay, we call that
fraud larceny by trick sometime in the old days. Right,
it's fraud. And he's asking you to participate in fraud.
So why would you? Why would you do that?
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Come on, says it's just a it's just the little least.
What's the problem. Oh come on, please right, forget about it.
You got nothing. Right, it's fraud. You're right, okay, if
you thought this was snaky and underhanded and whatnot, you're
(23:49):
probably right, all right. If you say that he lives
someplace where you know he doesn't live, now you're participating
in the fraud. Why would you do that? You wouldn't,
so don't okay? Uh, that that was easy, right, that
was an easy one. One are my legal rights to
a piece of property that my family let me live
in without a contract as long as I fixed it up.
(24:11):
What so your family lets you live in the house
so long as you fix it up, and there's no contract,
So as soon as you're fixing it up, they're going
to give you the heave ho. Right, they're gonna boot
you out. I mean, that's that's what I would read
from that, right. Well, here's more details. My wife and
I have lived in an old farmhouse that my wife's
(24:31):
family owns for about three years. For three years you've
been living there, they were going to tear it down
for a rent was free if we invested in fixing it. Okay,
So you're rented it. Over that course of time, we've
been invested roughly fifty thousand dollars to keep the house
from falling down, but it's gotten to a point we
cannot live in the house while we continue to fix it.
(24:51):
So it sounds sounds like you made a bad deal, right.
We bought a house and the family is now slandering
us and saying we have ruined property. Well, I'd like
to look at it first, you know what I mean.
I mean, there are all kinds of We used to
call them shade tree mechanics, right back when you could
fix a car in the shade of the tree. But
(25:14):
there are a lot of shade tree carpenters, you know,
a lot of handy handy experts out there. And you
may think that you put a lot of work into it,
and because you put a lot of work into it,
it's really good work, and someone else look at it
and just be astounded. Despite so they're slandering as well.
You know, it's a defense to slander if it's true. Okay,
(25:37):
said we've ruined the property, despite them saying they wanted
to tear it down before we moved in, they now
say that they can fix up the property and rent
it out based off the work we've already done. Well,
that was kind of the deal, wasn't it. Do I
just need to cut my losses. You mean cut your losses.
You made a deal to fix it up if you
could stay in it. You fixed it up while you
(25:58):
were staying in it. That's the deal. Do I need
to cut my losses? Do we have legal standing for
adding value to the property? We no longer want any
relationship with this family regardless due to this land or
they put on my wife. What maybe she's not a
good carpenter. I don't know. So we also don't want
them to capitalize off our losses. Well, I don't know
(26:19):
what it would cost. I mean fifty thousand dollars, so
that's fifteen thousand dollars a year. So that's roughly twelve
hundred dollars a month, right, I don't know what you
can rent for twelve hundred bucks a month wherever it
is you live. Maybe it wasn't such a bad deal.
I don't know. But for sure, whenever it comes to
(26:41):
real estate, okay, any contract in real estate has to
be in writing, because if it's not in writing, okay,
then you don't have a contract. You don't have anything.
So that's the deal. How can a judge make a
(27:02):
ruling on a common shared deeded easement that caters and
benefits only one party and harms the other. See, right
off the bat, you know that this is going to
be a wasted effort, right because if you want to ask,
how can a judge? You know, that's what it starts.
How can a judge? All right, any question starts out
how can a judge? The answer is because he's a
(27:25):
judge or she's a judge. Whatever. But but let's dig
a little deeper into this insanity, all right. Twenty one
years ago, all parties to a common recorded shared easement
agreed to plant decorative landscaping along the driveway to improve
the aesthetics of the community entrance. These mature trees as
landscaping are now valued at over five thousand dollars each.
(27:47):
And there's ten of them. It's fifty thousand dollars. Wow,
that was that was a number in the last one.
It's another fifty thousand dollars. Last week, one trouble making
Karen demanded that an entire row of mature, twenty foot
tall decorative white myrtles be cut down, and a judge
ordered it so x party to two of the other
(28:07):
needed parties. None of the other three d holders want this.
How can a court favor one person when four families
are involved. Trees have not been bothering anyone for twenty
one years. How do we stop them from cutting them down?
This affects the aesthetics of the real estate of the
other three parties as it's at the entrance. Hell, okay,
so here's the here's the thing. It kind of depends
(28:32):
right on what the easement says. You've got how many trees?
Ten trees? I love this, approximately ten of them? What
was approximately ten trees? Is that eleven trees or is
it nine? I don't know. Anyway, approximately ten trees. And
apparently this person thinks it makes it look wonderful and
(28:53):
somebody else the Karen trouble making Karen, you know she
doesn't think so well. I don't know. I mean, what
would a real railroad what would a roadway engineer say
if somebody comes out and says, hey, you know, you
get these beautiful myrtles here, but they're not so beautiful
and they need to be cut down because they're impeding
(29:14):
traffic flow or visual or whatever. You know what I mean.
I mean, you can get into that and it kind
of makes you wonder what exactly the easement says, right,
was it a It just depends. I mean, you've got
to read these things. You can't you can't can't tell you.
But here apparently some of the some of the some
(29:35):
of the parties were there, some were not. Bottom line,
if the judge says so, you're probably stuck, that will
be his interpretation of the easement and the and the
use under the easement. But that's without looking at anything.
Even listening to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier,
your family's personal.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Attorney, David and working and taking your calls. Now this
is the David car Your Show.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Welcome back to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier
still and yes, Alardie, I'll take crazy real estate questions
for five hundred. You remember earlier we had the one
where the dad wanted to sell the property because he
was with the kids, right because his wife put all
three of them on there, and it's like, oh, you know,
(30:27):
I picked it because it's kind of bizarre question. Right, Well,
here's another one. How did my father's name get taken
off the deed? My father and siblings inherited a house
from their mom, when trying to sell the house, they
couldn't find my father? How hard did they look? So
they got his name taken off and sold it. Just
wondering if that is something they can do well right
(30:49):
off the bat, No, it's not something they can do.
There's different ways, but there are ways to do it.
I mean they could have forged his name. I suppose
that could have happened, you know, just get somebody from
a shelter and whatever. Let's not go that way. That
would be total fraud. Well, you know what they could
(31:10):
have done. I mean, it would be possible to sell
the property. You go to court and you do an
action to determine interest in land or something like that,
where where or in order for sale? Right, you could
do that. That's not impossible. But here's the thing. The
(31:33):
father survived the mom. See this is the again. Let
me back up a little bit. When you get a
property right and you're inheriting a property, you don't want
to inherit a property with anybody else's name on it. Okay,
it's an absolute problem. Right. Have you ever gotten like
(31:56):
paint on your fingers? Like varnish is the worst? You
get varnished on your fingers and then everything you touched
it's got varnish on it, and it's like you can't
get rid of the stuff. It's just terrible. And this
is like that, I mean, it's like it's the worst.
You get everybody's name on it. And here's the other
problem with doing it like this. The other problem is
(32:18):
who's going to sell the property? You see, you never
want to You never, ever, ever, ever want to get
your name on a piece of property coming out of
an estate, unless it's yours the only name on the
property and you really want to live in that property,
or it's a cottage or something like that. Okay, if
this thing is going to get sold, you don't you
(32:42):
sell it out of the estate. You sell it out
of the estate. You have the trust sell it, you
have the probate estate. Sell it. Okay, that's how you
do it, because at the end of the day, you're
only going to have money, right at least you hope
you only have money. But what if you take the property? Okay,
(33:02):
thank you, now I got the property, and then you
turn around and sell it and you think, well that's
better because now I don't have to deal with the
probate cord or my rotten sister who's the executor or
something like. You think that's good. Well, let me ask you.
If you're the seller of the property and something goes sideways,
who do you think the buyer is looking for the
(33:24):
answer is they're looking for you, because you were the seller.
And it's even worse if you've got half a dozen
people on that stupid deed, because now you've got to
negotiate to say you got to. Everybody's got to agree,
and there are spouses of course, have to agree, and
whoever else they think their guru has to agree. Okay,
So now you got to get all these people to
(33:45):
agree to do it because you deed it out. They're
all on the deed, all right. It only takes one
of them to totally scotch the deal. So that's terrible.
So you don't And if the buyer is unhappy, who
do they sue?
Speaker 1 (34:00):
Right?
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Look, you're got you got four deadbeat siblings and you okay,
then they and they buy the house and it turns
out there's termites or PIFAs or esbestos, or they just
don't like the property anymore. The hot tub doesn't worry.
I don't know, whatever it is whatever it is, and
they decide that you, the sellers, are at fault, and
(34:22):
now they come back and sue you, you and your
four deadbeat siblings. Who do you think they're gonna get
the money from? Okay, you don't do this. Have it
sold out of the estate and take the money. Okay.
Then if they're gonna sue somebody or the trust, either
(34:43):
or the trust right and take the money. Let them
sue the trust. Let them sue the estate. It's closed,
there's no assets, go away, right, But you're not. You
didn't sign the buy sell agreement, you didn't sign the deed,
you didn't sign the seller's disclosure statement, you didn't sign
any Okay. So when I hear about people, you know, oh,
(35:05):
I'm gonna put my kids on the d o ladybird,
d oh ladybrided is such a great idea. It's like,
oh my god, you see this is what I taught.
When I'm talking about people getting away with stuff, this
is what I'm talking about. It's like, I'm not saying
it never works. I'm never I'm not saying you know
it couldn't work. What I am saying is you have
(35:25):
no reason. No, no, you got no backup, you got
no reason for thinking that will work. Maybe it works. Okay,
that's great, you got away with it. Hurrah for you,
you know, wonderful, oh and associated. But and then what
happens when they get away with it? They keep repeating it,
you know, like this is this is what actually, this
(35:48):
is what actually happens. Okay, Now, in this case with
the father's name taken off the deed, right, if they
did go to court and they got an order for sale,
they should have taken his share of the money. And
if they can't find him, they can't find him, right,
let's assume that that's what happened, then they need to
pay that into the state. Right, so the state of
(36:10):
Michigan should have that money, right, if they did it correctly,
because just because he died, you know what did they say,
what he disappeared? Martians took him? No, he died, Well,
then are you their heir? The heirs? And if these
kids whose name were on the deed did go through probate,
(36:31):
then the kid who's writing the letter should have gotten
notice of that. Do you see see how screwy this is.
It's it's kind of screwy. The only correct way this
would have been done, is his share of the money
would have gone to the state. They are held on
to it for a year, and if they can't find
him in a year, then they pay it to the
then they pay it to the to the state. It's
(36:52):
used to the state. So that's what that's what should
have happened. If this is on the up and up.
And if it's not on the up and up, well
it's not on the up and up. And now they
get sued and now more full employment for lawyers. Ain't that?
Ain't that wonderful? Okay, let let's get another one. Let's
see I rented property for twelve years now and I
(37:15):
kept the maintaining an empty lot. No one has ever
been maintaining it, so I called that name of property
and taxes owed. There are a thousand dollars behind and
I haven't paid since two thousand and nine. Two thousand
and nine. What do I pay one thousand dollars in taxes?
Or do adverage possession? I don't even know how you know?
(37:35):
Is the empty lot like adjacent to it or something?
I mean, we don't know. We don't have enough facts here.
But it's fifteen years anyway, and the fact that you
have been maintaining the empty lot if it's adjacent to
the rented property, you know, and the fact that I mean,
there's some things that don't add up here, Like the
idea is that there are a thousand they haven't paid
any taxes in the last twenty six years. That seems
(37:59):
un likely, right, I mean, this seems like impossible. Okay,
it would have been sold for it had been sold
for taxes already, So you don't have any adverse possession
that's fifteen years has to be open, notorious, you can't
have permission to use it. There's a bunch of stuff
here that I don't think you've got. So just just
(38:21):
enjoy the empty lot next to your rented house and
you know, put your picnic table on it. But it's
not likely that you've gotten it's not likely that you've
gotten any title to it. You can probably buy the
tax title from the city. I guess that's what I do.
You've been listening to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier,
looking forward to seeing you at a three Secrets workshop
(38:44):
Big Carrier Law dot com.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
You've been listening to the David Carrier Show A lively
discussion addressing your questions and concerns, but not legal advice.
There is a big difference, so when making decisions that
affect your family, your property, or yourself, the best advice
is to seek good advice specific to your unique needs.
If you missed any of today's show, or would like
additional information about the law offices of David Carrier, please
(39:27):
visit Davidcarrier Law dot com.
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