Email ElizabethPractical Tips for Completing Seller Disclosures
This helpful Sacramento real estate agent is about to provide you with simple proof that the seller disclosures — which are required for a seller to complete to sell a home in Sacramento — are not as complicated and horrendous to complete as most sellers believe. Seller disclosures are definitely worse than that. They are filled with trick questions and big, unfamiliar words, but what do you expect from forms designed by a team of lawyers? See, one lawyer is OK. Two lawyers are permissible. But when you get more than two lawyers in a room, especially those who serve on a committee and must come up with a mutual agreement by noon or no Big Mac for you, well, all holy hell tends to break loose, and you get what we have in California: a transfer disclosure statement and a seller property questionnaire that very few sellers can fill out without guidance from their Sacramento real estate agent.
But that’s what I’m here for. To carefully guide my clients through the complicated process. We affectionally call the seller property questionnaire the SPQ. That’s because we speak in acronyms to annoy everybody around us and to disguise the swear words we can’t say out loud in public. You think we real estate agents are really talking about one thing when it’s totally something else unprintable. But that’s why you can’t tell us apart from the homeless people who wander around Midtown and mutter. Homeless guy or agent with a Bluetooth device? See, you don’t know, and it’s OK.
The second thing you need to know about seller disclosures is don’t ever worry about what you write on them. You can say anything to a buyer, and the buyer will still buy the home. Don’t believe me? I have 3 words for you: snake infested house. In Idaho. True story, those first-time home buyers bought it anyway.
Some of the questions on the SPQ can confuse a seller. For example, you might not know if you have received an order from the government that identified your home as being contaminated by methamphetamine. Is your home a meth lab? Well, I dunno. Maybe you weren’t home when the government showed up? Hey, you have to go to work, you’re not home all the time, tapping your toes, just waiting to see if some government official is gonna drop by to inspect your home for meth and hand you an order. I mean, let’s get real. We all have stuff to do.
What about that question about a death in the home? What is an occupant? Are they referring to an occupant who is a human being or could it be an animal like a dog or a cat? What about bugs? Actually, bugs are covered elsewhere in the SPQ. Section F asks whether a homeowner has encountered any problems with cows or pigs, swooping cranes or flamingos or those nasty little ants from Argentina, don’t cry for me. But if a person has died in the house over the last 3 years, a seller needs to disclose. That’s a long time. Regardless, nobody needs to hear all of the gory details, how you snuck up on your husband while he was sleeping and stabbed him in the head with an ice pick over and over, unless of course you can tell us all where to buy an ice pick these days. And don’t tell me on the internet.
Probably the most difficult question most sellers struggle with is whether to answer yes or no. I realize it is very tempting to answer with both. That’s why the lawyers who designed the seller disclosures realized it was necessary to explain under the “seller awareness” section that the questions should be answered by checking either yes or no. You would think this doesn’t need an explanation, but I am fully confident that it does. Because yes can mean no, and no can mean yes. And there is no I don’t know, and there should be because sometimes, let’s face it, maybe you just don’t know. Is your pet a dog or a cat? Hard to tell. Could be both. Your kid found it in the street. It’s not your critter.
This is when you should call your Sacramento real estate agent. Don’t ask the guy down the street or your mail carrier because they are hiding out from the guys who work for the government. Those meth labs are everywhere these days. Can’t swing a dead cat without hitting one.
How the Short Sale Arm’s Length Can Backfire on a Seller
Some Sacramento short sale sellers could be headed for a big surprise down the road after signing an arm’s length. I know this because I’ve talked with a Sacramento short sale agent here and there who see nothing wrong with letting the parties to a short sale make agreements outside of the closing. They can agree to all sorts of things that are against the law and without the bank’s knowledge, but a common happenstance is over possession. Sellers sometimes have a hard time moving so they want to rent back, but most of the short sale arm’s length agreements prevent a rent back. Therein lies the problem.
Now, you can ask the bank for an extension but a short sale extension is not always possible. Especially if the bank has already issued an extension. A bank is not always eager nor willing to issue a second extension. I’ve had banks say they would close the file and start the short sale over. In some instances, that solution would be OK with a seller because not every seller is in a rush to move — especially if the seller isn’t making a mortgage payment. Free rent doesn’t come along every day.
I can tell my sellers we are closing on a certain day but that doesn’t necessarily mean they understand that they have to move out. Doing a short sale is an overwhelming process for many people. Each is different and can be convoluted, so it’s sometimes difficult to predict what a seller may or may not understand. But one thing is for certain. If a seller violates an arm’s length agreement and works out some kind of rent-back with the buyer, it might seem innocent but it can cost the seller big-time. If the parties agree to a lease back, for example, and the arm’s length prohibits such a lease back, it’s possible the bank could rescind the deficiency waiver.
There is a little clause in CA Civil Code 580e that says the deficiency waiver does not apply in the event of mortgage fraud. If a seller intentionally defrauds the bank, the bank might demand that all of that forgiven debt be repaid. Apart from the ethical implications, there could be legal ramifications and consequences to violating the arm’s length. My advice is just don’t do it. Don’t go through the headache and heartache of a short sale just to end up with the deficiency back in your lap.
It’s in a seller’s best interest to plan to move out on or before closing in a short sale. The agents don’t set the closing date, the banks do. And right now, because of the expiration of the mortgage debt relief act, many approval letters are coming in with fewer than 30 days to close. Everybody and their uncles are trying to hit that December 31 closing date.
Beware of the Short Sale Service Release
When writing to another agent today about short sale service releases, it made me realize how little the average consumer knows about this practice. A service release happens when a bank sells the servicing rights for a loan to another bank. Some banks are the actual investor, the entities that own the note, but many banks are nothing more than a collection agent for the loan. The bank takes the money from the borrower, pockets a fee for its services, and then distributes the rest to the investors. It has other duties outlined in the PSA such as handling the foreclosure, which pays the bank even more money. That’s one of the reasons why some banks can prefer foreclosure to short sale.
Bank of America seems to be in the middle of a big sell off. It is selling servicing rights to other banks. At first I thought maybe it was Fannie Mae who fired Bank of America, but it seems to be the other way around. In one such Sacramento short sale, we had put a pre-approved Bank of America Cooperative Short Sale into escrow. The seller had signed the Borrower Acknowledgement of Interest — known in short sale lingo as the BAI. This is not a commitment on the part of Bank of America but most people take it as such.
The short sale progressed smoothly, as most Cooperative Short Sales do these days. We received the counter in Equator, which removed a few miscellaneous fees from the purchase contract that Fannie Mae would not allow. Usually, when we approve the counter offer, we get the short sale approval letter anywhere from 24 hours to 10 days later. Instead of receiving the approval letter, though, we received a decline of short sale because the bank had sold the servicing rights to Seterus. Our old friend, IBM.
Seterus does not Cooperative Short Sales. Seterus does traditional short sales. Long story short, Seterus rejected the short sale. The seller did not receive her $3,000 relocation incentive. The buyer did not buy the home. The entire transaction blew up, and there was nothing we could do about it. The home went to foreclosure. If you don’t think service releases produce horrific results, here is one for the record.
Dinner at Red Rabbit by Former Alinea Chef Ostrander
We celebrated a Winter in Lake Tahoe: a Culinary and Libation Excursion at the Red Rabbit Restaurant in Midtown last night. This restaurant is located across the street from my office at Lyon Real Estate, so we decided to park in the garage below my office. As a top producer, I have a free parking card that gets me into the garage after hours. I don’t use it very often, which is why I forgot that once the card lets you in, it will only let you back out. You can’t use it to get in again. And I left my keys to the office at home.
But that’s neither nor there as my husband figured out what to do and came to the rescue. We had contemplated taking a cab because there were 5 or 6 cocktails to sample during dinner. Former Alinea chef Scott Ostrander put together the menu and made us dinner at this special event. When we arrived, they were running a little bit behind so we had to wait be seated.
When the hostess asked us to follow her, I wondered where we were going because the restaurant is long and narrow. It’s in the old Red Lotus space. She led us outdoors to a screened in area heated by overhead lamps and a roaring fireplace. There were two long tables covered with white linens. The centerpieces were clear flower vases filled with blue lights at the bottom, and stuffed with white chrysanthemums, featuring tree branches sprayed white with little pieces of glitter stuck to the branches, nestled in with a few silver spiral cat toys. Part of the room’s perimeter was dotted by unadorned evergreen trees.
Our first course was a hot toddy, served on a round platter cut out from a tree. The platters served as chargers, surfaces sanded smooth and about an inch and half high, with the perimeter in its natural raw tree bark state. These were like the plates we had been served with at Alinea Restaurant last month. Except in Chicago it’s permissible to serve food on wood but it’s against the law in California — a food fact I did not know. We sucked on a cinnamon stick coated with honey on one end and tossed back the hot toddy.
The photo above is the salad of the earth, featuring beets, carrots, celeriac, wild flower 
petals, arugula nestled on a bed of what seemed to be pumpernickel bread crumbs sprinkled with mushroom powder. But I wouldn’t swear to it. This was followed by a rainbow trout that is quite possibly the best rainbow trout I’ve ever had (to the right). It’s from Lake Tahoe, of course. Ostrander served the trout on a piece of pine, covered with banana leaves (because you can’t serve food on wood), surrounded by heated pebble stones, on top of which we poured “lake water.” You’ll probably spot a photo of this in Sacramento Magazine because there was a photographer from that publication wandering around.
From the soil, our next course was mushroom soup, made from wild mushrooms, with a little cream, I suspect, floating on top. We were instructed to eat it by spooning the soup into our faces using two leeks sticking out of the bowl. My leeks were rather weak and didn’t work correctly or maybe I just wasn’t shoveling fast enough. Instead, I took a bite of leek and spooned into my mouth the delectable soup and was in heaven. Gobble, gobble leeks. Yum.
Our main course, venison, was served on a stark white plate with a big ol’ lump of mashed potatoes next to it. It looked like an entire loin and probably was since it had two ends. It was far more food than a reasonable person should probably consume but I ate almost all of it anyway, and my husband finished his. I don’t really like venison, I thought, but this was mouth-watering delicious and not at all gamey. I would order venison again now.
The final course was a snowman with a small carrot for a nose and a chocolate log. It came paired with a Cider Flip, which is apple cider and rum and I’m not sure what else, maybe an egg white but definitely cinnamon, and it was served warm. This is when I noticed the emperor had no clothes. Everybody at the table had the same expression on their face. That of agony. But nobody was saying anything. My husband, always a pillar of truth, turned to me and whispered, “This is terrible.” I agreed. The chocolate log was not really chocolatey even though it looked like a fudgey Tootsie Roll, it tasted more like bitter tofu, with the consistency of rubber. The guy across from said, “Hey, this snowman tastes just like a snowman.” And he meant it. He was right.
But as my husband pointed out, perhaps dessert was meant to be the Cider Flip, and the snowman / chocolate log was just decoration. The dinner was fabulous enough that dessert didn’t matter.
Scott Ostrander is going to Yountville.
Life of Pi a Brief Review by Elizabeth Weintraub
There is no real way to describe the movie: Life of Pi. It’s a movie that should be experienced, and you can see it at the downtown mall in Sacramento. It’s not like The Tree of Life that forced the Tower Theatre to put up notices in the lobby warning moviegoers about it because so many people complained that it wasn’t a movie. This movie is not only visual. It’s moving and magical and monumental and magnificent. Director Ang Lee’s majesty is all over it.
You might wonder, like I did, how a movie about a boy lost at sea in a boat with a tiger could be very interesting but it was mesmerizing. First, the movie is in 3D, so if you have an opportunity to see this movie in your area and it’s not offered in 3D, I would not go see it. You know how some movie theaters are and not all of them show a 3D movie in 3D. The 3D effects are spectacular, and except for the couple of instances of a hummingbird fluttering over the seat in front of me, I quickly forgot that I was even wearing glasses. I was sucked into the movie and became part of it. It was Zen.
Pi is a boy in India. He is inquisitive and somewhat precocious. He is a Hindu / Christian / Muslim, but the movie is not about religion even though faith in God plays a part. There is a long beginning about his family, his family history, yeah, they own a zoo in India, and tigers are mean because they are a wild animal. Then, they get on an oceanliner with a racist cook and all of the animals and they head for Canada. A wild storm at sea makes the boat sink, and Pi winds up a in a lifeboat with an orangutan, hyena, zebra and a Bengal tiger.
It’s the storm that starts the gripping of the movie. Up until that point, I was perfectly calm in my seat, munching on popcorn and sipping a Diet Coke. But the minute those waves kicked up and began to churn, my heart began to pound. It’s like the movie reached out into the audience and stuck its sticky little movie fingers around my throat and did not let go for the rest of the movie. It pulled me to the edge of my seat. I gripped my husband’s hand. There were parts during which I wanted to shield my eyes. I thought my eyes could not possibly withstand the view, but my head was in a vise grip and I could not avert my eyes from the screen.
I walked into the theater wondering how a director could get a tiger into a boat to make a movie. Ha, I live with 3 cats. I walked out buying the whole thing. Except for maybe the part with the meerkats, I had my doubts about those. You should go see it. And yes, sirree, bananas can float.
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