• Provide opportunities for children with disabilities to play Miracle League baseball, regardless of their abilities.
• Promote community support and sponsorship of Miracle Leagues.
• Promote the construction of special facilities that meet the unique needs of Miracle League players and their families.
• Provide opportunities for children with disabilities to play.

You might also wonder why I’ve referred to this cookout as “The Last Supper.”  We will be relocating our offices on August 31.  Pete will be moving back to Travelers Boulevard and will be in Unit K (formerly occupied by Taylor & Miles, Accountants).  I will be sharing space with the Steinberg Law Firm at an undisclosed address in Summerville.  (I’ll disclose it as soon as I know it!)

Pete’s new firm will be known as the Wyckoff Law Firm, P.A. and my firm will be known as the DeMott Law Firm, P.A.  (Not very imaginative, but it works.)  So this will be the last supper at our current location.  We have enjoyed doing these luncheons and getting to know you all better while helping those in need. I sincerely hope we have a great turnout for this luncheon to benefit this very special cause.

Pete and our wonderful closing staff will continue to provide you with outstanding real estate closing services.  I will be concentrating on my bankruptcy practice, as well as developing my other practice areas.

Pete and I would like to thank you for all your support over the years.  We realize that without your kind referrals, would not have been successful.

–Russ DeMott

Have a Happy and safe July 4th weekend!

–Russ DeMott

This time Cheryl Mathis will be cooking.  Cheryl is a tenant in the building and does nurse consulting for the Steinberg Law Firm.  And, it turns out, she’s a barbecue aficionado.  In fact, she apparently lives a double life: nurse consultant by day and Queen of the Red Hot Pig Barbecue by night over in Orangeburg.  She owns the Red Hot  Pig with Roger Heaton.  She’s even bringing her own cooker and tools.

Pete has been relieved of duty for good behavior, but given his love of cooking, I’m sure he’s participating in some BIG way.  (I just don’t know what, yet….)

For our sponsored charity in February, we raised $1300 which went to a young woman with cancer.  It’s great to be part of helping someone out when they’re going through something so difficult. You all deserve a pat on the back for being so generous in tough times!

This month we’re doing something similar.  Our beneficiary will be Laura Mills of the Steinberg Law Firm.  Laura has had some very significant health problems lately.  She’s been diagnosed with super-ventricular tachycardia (SVT) and mitral valve prolapse (MVP).

Laura’s problems appeared last summer. At first, the doctor thought it was lack of sleep or stress.  However, after eventually getting her health insurance company to pay for a heart monitor–no small task as you might imagine–the monitor showed the arrhythmia.  At times, her heart would beat more than 250 beats per minute.

Eventually, Laura had a catheter ablation, which has helped, but has also led to a blood clot.  More significantly, the cardiologist found a hole in her heart.  She’s waiting for news from her cardiologist as to treatment options.

Throughout this ordeal, Laura has continued to work.  She’s a strong young woman and, being from Indiana, has gone through this without family in the area.  However, as you might expect, all these issues have resulted in unexpected medical bills.  To date, those total over $75,000.  Our goal is to assist Laura by making a financial contribution to her to help her through this difficult time.

Anything you can contribute would be greatly appreciated.  I look forward to seeing you all tomorrow.

–Russ DeMott

On November 30, 2009 the administration released the Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives Program, (“HAFA”) which simplifies procedures and offers financial incentives for completing short sales.  (A “short sale” occurs when a lender agrees to accept less than the amount owed in exchange for releasing its mortgage.)

The new federal guidelines seek to eliminate many of the barriers that have often derailed short sales.  Banks will have a time limit to approve an offer, the claims of subordinate lenders (2^nd mortgage holders) have been capped, and borrowers will be released from the remaining debt—at least on first mortgages.

There are now financial incentives for approving short sales and deed-in-lieu transactions, including a payment of $1000 to the mortgage servicer and other incentives.  In addition, the borrower can receive $1500 for moving expenses.

Many realtors, buyers, and sellers have long been frustrated by the red tape of a short sale because of the exhausting negotiations involved.  It’s hard enough to reach an office consensus on what toppings to put on a pizza, but try to get a buyer, seller, lender, and a mortgage insurance company to agree is to the terms of a deal is almost impossible—at least in a reasonable amount of time.  Lenders often complain about the sales price and distribution of proceeds. They also squabble over whether the borrower can be responsible for the remaining debt.  And that’s if you are even lucky enough to get a response from the lender.

The good news for realtors is that mortgage servicers may not reduce the commissions paid to realtors.  This is welcome news to real estate agents and good news for homeowners looking to do a short sale.

With the new rules in place, mortgage servicers have ten days to consent to a request for a short sale, and upon completion of the sale, the borrower must be fully released from the mortgage note.  That means no more personal liability following the seller.  This is excellent news for borrowers.  Before the new rules, the mortgage servicer could accept less for the house, then sue the former homeowner for the rest of the money owed.

Remember, these new guidelines apply only to lenders subject to federal oversight.  If your bank is state chartered, then they will not be held to these rules, but most of the big lenders will.

Wondering if your home is eligible?  According to the Home Affordability Modification Program, a loan meets the basic eligibility criteria if all of the following conditions are met:

• The property is the borrower’s principal residence;
• The mortgage loan is a first lien mortgage originated on or before January 1, 2009;
• The mortgage is delinquent or default is reasonably foreseeable;
• The current unpaid principal balance is equal to or less than $729,750; and
• The borrower’s total monthly mortgage payment (as defined in Supplemental Directive 09-01) exceeds 31 percent of the borrower’s gross income.

The full set of guidelines can be found here.

While I hope this program will actually help to streamline short sales or other loan modifications, I’m highly skeptical.  Like all other federal programs dealing with mortgage modification, the HAMP program and the HAFA initiatives are voluntary.  In addition, HAMP and HAFA don’t apply to laons guaranteed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac–about half of all mortgages are guaranteed by these two giants.  (However, Fannie and Freddie are to issue their own progam guidelines in the near future.)

The deadline for banks to enroll in this program is April 1, 2010.  The program takes effect on April 5, 2010 and terminates on December 31, 2012.  Many believe that since lenders have only ten days to respond to a short sale request, lenders will decline to participate.   Here’s a list of financial institutions participating in HAFA.

Let’s hope this added feature to the HAMP program is effective.  At this point, HAMP has been widely regarded as a failure.

It’s time to start our monthly charity luncheons again.  We begin with our first one of the new year tomorrow, February 3 at noon.

You may have noticed that I put “HELP!!” in the title.  That’s because while we believe all our charity events are important, this one’s much more important.

Last week, I learned of a 17-year-old girl who was recently diagnosed with cancer.  Prior to this horrible news, she attended a local high school and had a typical teenage life.  Now, she has been diagnosed with stage 3 lymphoma.  The doctors could not do surgery to remove the mass from her chest because it is attached to one of her lungs and her heart.  The mass is the size of a baseball.  She began chemotherapy on January 25 and has six months of it to go. During treatment she will be staying at MUSC several days per week.

The reason we are sponsoring this young woman and her family is that, as is all too often the case, her insurance will not cover all of the expenses.  In fact, she must go on a very expensive medication and her insurance company has refused to pay for it.  She has secured a discount from the pharmaceutical company, but that just means she’ll pay, in essence, what the Canadians pay.  There will still be substantial costs for treatment.   Our firm and the Steinberg Law Firm will do our best to help with the insurance issue to make sure her insurance company is held accountable for paying all costs they agreed to pay in the policy.

We will be holding a raffle for a framed picture taken by Michael Mulligan.  In fact, it’s the same raffle we had about six months ago.  My wife bought several tickets and won it.  We’ve been planning to put it up for another raffle, and this one seems like it should be the one.

Please join us for this important luncheon and donate whatever you can!  And please keep this young woman in your thoughts and prayers.

–Russ DeMott

]]> http://demottrealestate.com/blog/february-charity-luncheon-reminder-help/feed/ 0 http://demottrealestate.com/blog/november-charity-luncheon-reminder/ http://demottrealestate.com/blog/november-charity-luncheon-reminder/#comments Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:52:29 +0000 Russ DeMott http://demottrealestate.com/blog/?p=403

Photo by Michael Mulligan

I wanted to remind you all that Wyckoff & DeMott and the Steinberg Law Firm are having our November charity luncheon this Wednesday, November 4, at noon.  This month our sponsored charity is the Charleston Trident Association of Realtor’s reading mentoring program.  Please bring age-appropriate books for elementary school children.  CTAR will get the books into the hands of children who would otherwise lack the financial means to buy books.  In the alternative, monetary donations would be greatly appreciated. 

Opa Cafe will be cooking for the event, so come get some delicious Greek Food!  You’ll be able to put together your own gyros, Greek salad, and potatoes.  Of course, we’ll also have  we’ll have some tasty desserts.  We hope you can all make it!

–Russ DeMott

Photo by Marissa DeMott

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development amended its RESPA (“Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act”) Rule back in November of 2008.  Since that time, there have been numerous attempts to derail implementation of the new rule, including legal challenges.  However, those efforts have failed, and implementation of the new RESPA rule will occur as planned on January 1, 2010.  Since we’ll all be off watching football and eating turkey on January 1, let’s just say the big day’s going to be January 2.

The new RESPA rule affects the Good Faith Estimate (“GFE”) and the HUD-1/HUD-1A settlement statement.  For those of you who don’t know, a GFE must be given to a borrower during the loan process.  The HUD-1 is the settlement statement used for  purchase closing, and the HUD-1A may be used in place of the HUD-1 in a refinance closing.  This all sounds like alphabet soup, I know, but it’s just not that much fun.  Nevertheless, we’ll all have to deal with this major overhaul, so we may as well start trying to figure it out.  Even if you’re not a loan originator, if you deal with real estate clients, you’ll have to understand the HUD-1.  I’ll be doing a series of posts on the new RESPA Rule between now and January 2.  The posts will address GFE and HUD-1/1-A issues.

My mind works best when moving from the general to the specific.  Hopefully, yours does as well because before we get into too much detail, I want to do a general overview.  First, the purpose of the new rule is:

• To help consumers shop for the best loan. The idea is that shopping leads to greater competition and lower prices.
• To ensure that the key terms of the loan are disclosed to the borrower.  Not all states require attorneys to close real estate transactions.  Consequently, there have been borrowers who closed on a transaction they did not fully understand.  Hopefully, the new rule will help eliminate the “I didn’t know my rate could change” issue as well as the “what about these extra changes?” issue.

The way the new rule attempts to achieve these goals is to make the GFE–with some exceptions–more of a binding quote than a good faith estimate.   (Although, I have not heard anyone refer to the GFE as the GFBQ–”Good Faith Binding Quote.”)  Accordingly,  the new rule:

• Prohibits deviations in the GFE and HUD-1 (settlement statement) charges.  What the lender says the fee will be on the GFE must match the actual charges on the HUD.  I call this the syncing of the GFE and the HUD.   Again, as with almost all things legal, there are some exceptions.  And the exceptions in the new rule actually make sense.
• Requires a loan terms summary to be added to both the GFE and the HUD.
• Regulates the disclosure of fees, including the yield spread premium, title charges, and seller-paid items.

On last point to remember:  RESPA provides that the HUD-1 must be used in all federally-related mortgage loans.  There are exceptions to this, the most notable being loans primarily for business, commercial, or agricultural purposes.  For a complete list of exceptions, see 24 C.F.R. 3500.5(b).  So we’re talking about residential transactions where federally-related mortgages are involved.  In essence, this means a HUD-1 must be used in almost all residential closings, but not in commercial or agricultural closings.

–Russ DeMott

Photo by Kim Held

I wanted to remind you all that Wyckoff & DeMott and the Steinberg Law Firm are having our October charity luncheon this Wednesday, October 7, at noon.  This month our sponsored charity is Simply Divine Garden, which was founded by Darcy Whalen.  Simply Divine Garden works with cancer patients by helping create gardens at cancer patients’ homes.  Darcy started the organization after losing her mother and brother to cancer.  Her mother was an avid gardener who took great pleasure in sitting in her garden after cancer treatments.  Please visit Simply Divine Garden’s website at www.simplydivinegarden.org.

Darcy will be selling raffle tickets for two wrought iron planters with fall flowers and will also have registration forms for her 1st Annual Run that will take place on Saturday, October 10.

Pete will be cooking barbecue, and we’ll provide a variety of side dishes and desserts as well.  We hope you can all make it!

–Russ DeMott

Photo by Michael Mulligan

Tonight I had an epiphany.  What could I give to my loyal subscribers in addition to useful information?  Then it came to me!  I can link back to their websites on the blog.  If you don’t understand the value of this, you need to know a little about SEO, which stands for Search Engine Optimization.  The point of SEO is to be found when someone searches for the product or service you sell.  Two main forces drive SEO: (1) back links from other sites (like this one) and (2) content.  I can’t help you with the content, but I can back link to your site.

If you’d like me to do this, let me know.  All you have to do is be a subscriber, and there’s no charge for that.  Also, if you want me to back link to you, please let me know what you want in the anchor text, which is the text associated with your back link.  (For example, “Charleston Area Realtor,” “Loan Originator,” or “Goat Farmer.”  The choice is yours.  You can email me at russ@wyckoffdemott.com.

One more thing: I am not requesting a reciprocal link because reciprocal links are not as valuable.  You’ll get a link from this site to yours.  No need to return the favor.

I look forward to hearing from  you and will be sending out an email to most of my real estate contacts in the area.  If you know someone who’s interested, please let them know.

–Russ DeMott

Photo by Marissa DeMott

You or your client has a document entitled “general durable power of attorney.”  Will it be sufficient for the closing? 

First, let’s discuss exactly what a general durable power of attorney is and what it’s not.  Powers of attorney are documents giving attorneys-in-fact or agents power to act on behalf of the principal.  By way of example, if Mom names Son as her attorney-in-fact, Son may act on her behalf.  Exactly what Son may do depends on how the document is drafted.  That’s what the “general” means in a general durable power of attorney: that the attorney-in-fact has authority to do anything the person granting it can do.   The attorney-in-fact can buy property, sell property, file tax returns, bring lawsuits, open and close accounts-anything.  A general durable power of attorney is a lot like Grandma’s night shirt: it covers everything. 

Where’s the “durable” come in?  Durable means that the authority remains even if the principal-in our example, Mom-becomes physically or mentally incapacitated.  A typical durability provision might read like this: “This durable Power of Attorney is not affected by my physical disability or mental incompetence which renders me incapable of managing my own affairs and shall continue in effect until my death or until revoked by me in writing.”  This makes perfect sense, because the reason general durable powers of attorney are given is to insure that the principal’s affairs will be managed if she can’t act on her own behalf.  If Mom has a stroke or gets into an auto accident, she wants Son to be able to manage her financial affairs.

So if a general durable power of attorney covers everything, won’t it work for closings?  The answer depends on whether the title insurance company permits the document to be used.  Usually, a general durable power of attorney can be used if it’s not more than two or three years old and, of course, grants the necessary powers to the attorney-in-fact.  However, different title insurance companies have different policies regarding general powers of attorney.  To complicate things further, some lenders allow them to be used, and others don’t.

However, “special” powers of attorney are almost universally allowed by title insurance companies and lenders.  If a general power of attorney is like grandma’s night shirt, a special power of attorney is more like a string bikini: it covers very little, just the essentials.  A special power of attorney will provide that the attorney-in-fact has authority to purchase (or sell) the particular property at issue in the closing.  Beyond that, it won’t say anything more.  Nothing about tax returns, bank accounts, or anything else.  It’s clear, therefore, that the person granting the speicial power of attorney knowingly authorizes the attorney-in-fact to do the one thing the form deals with: buy or sell property.

The lesson here is that with either type of power of attorney, you need to check with the closing attorney to make sure the document is properly drafted, properly executed, and acceptable to the necessary parties to the transaction.  And remember, sometimes less is more!

–Russ DeMott