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Title Held In Trusts And Divorce
Dealing with title held in trusts and divorce is an interesting topic. When people get married, they often create a trust together. In general, they are each named as a trustee. When they buy a home, the title is often put into a trust. Unfortunately, in some cases, divorce happens. On this topic, I received a phone call from a referral source. He said he had met someone divorcing and they needed to sell their home.
Signing documents online is generally simple enough. This may not be possible in a divorce, especially if they are still living together in the property. When the clients can not agree, and I am in the room or on a conference call, sometimes I excuse myself. During the details of trusts and divorce when signing a listing agreement, with communications between the parties strained, I always say call your attorneys for legal advice.
When escrow closing happens, the sellers usually have the proceeds wired to their bank. One couple got creative and opened two separate bank accounts with each being named as a trustee signer, in the name of the trust. The title officer said, no, she could not split the funds into two different accounts. Her reason was the official trust documents named both co-trustees, so they had to have one account in the name of the trust. Both trustees had to be on the trust checking account, jointly. The trustees went back to the bank and opened another trust account.
What I love about real estate are unique situations that occur and working through them. Title held in trusts and divorce is a topic of much discussion. I recently attended the Placer County Association with fiduciaries attorneys and trust planners. The topic was trusts and divorce. Always trustees and successor trustees should consult with their attorney for any legal advice.
From the title officer’s guidance: keep your trust checking account in place as joint assets may need to be deposited into that account for distribution. For trusts and probate sales, call Weintraub & Wallace Realtors with RE/MAX Gold. If we don’t know the answer, we will find it from one of our many experts. Our title officer has been in the business for 35 years. To reach us call 916-233-6759.
— JaCi Wallace
Tuesday, Time To Celebrate If Buyers Sign Docs?
Tuesday, time to celebrate If buyers sign docs? Whoa, slow down. So buyers signing loan documents to purchase a home and closing are two different things. Of course, many times closing escrow happens more often than not.
Ok, so what can happen to stop the recording and hold up a close of escrow? The buyer does a walkthrough of the property they are buying and guess what? If a property is a mess and the seller has removed items they were supposed to leave such as washer dryer and refrigerator, it may not close. This is just one scenario. A buyer only has to call escrow and say do not record and the entire process comes to a dead stop.
The moral of this story is to save the beers or diet soda toasts for when the escrow has officially closed. It is never over until it is over, is my favorite saying in coaching a Sacramento seller to set realistic expectations.
If you want to close escrow hire agents that ensure a seller will do what they promised to do. Just hire Weintraub & Wallace Realtors with RE/MAX Gold as we close our escrows when a buyer signs. When is it time to celebrate? When your funds are available to you in your account, this is is when we celebrate. Our Sellers understand the process and they want to cooperate and close, so call us today at 916-233-6759.
— JaCi Wallace
When a Home Seller Cancels the Contract for Non-Performance
When a home seller cancels the contract for non-performance, she must have a specific action that the buyer failed to complete. In this case, it is the buyer’s good faith deposit. The contract specifically states the buyer’s funds must be deposited into the title company within 3 days after acceptance of the buyer’s offer.
In this particular escrow, there have been many conversations about the deposit and several reasons why the funds have not been wired. A car wreck, an illness and then a tragedy in the family with their child. Another reason for the delay just happened this week. The funds were somehow wired to the wrong title company. The seller’s agent has been very patient. Everyone has a line in the sand and the seller and her Realtor have reached that point with the buyer. The buyer has truly tried everything within her means but has been unable to perform.
As we are 12 days into this and no deposit has been made, the Notice to Buyer to Perform was received yesterday. The notice specifically states: “If the buyer does not remove all contingencies within two days from the day after the delivery of the notice, the seller can cancel the agreement.” As the notice was received yesterday, the buyers legally have until the day after tomorrow at 5:00 PM to deliver the earnest money deposit; if they do not, the seller simply cancels and sells to another buyer.
When a home seller cancels the contract for non-performance, this can be sad news for buyers. The buyers in this case are from out of state, so even further complications. This notice is important. The seller has lost valuable time on the market to sell the property as it has been in pending status. Pending sale in MLS detours other buyers from looking at the property.
When a home seller cancels the contract for non-performance, this is a last resort ditch effort. If a buyer wants to save this escrow from cancelling, they must go to the bank today. The seller’s agent needs confirmation the funds were wired and deposited with the title company.
If you are looking to buy a home, always make sure you have your deposit funds ready to go when you sign your purchase agreement. This will ensure that when a seller cancels the contract for non-performance, it will happen to someone else, but not you!
If you are thinking about selling a property, rest assured Weintraub & Wallace Realtors will always insist on a deposit check immediately on our listings. Call us today at RE/MAX Gold, 916-233-6759.
— JaCi Wallace
Another Sacramento Home Has Closed Escrow
Want to read about a Sacramento home that closed escrow without a hitch? It’s not often in this Sacramento real estate market that I am afforded the opportunity to gush about what a smooth transaction we just closed because in squirrelly times like the present, the real estate business is typically anything but smooth. The escrow that just closed, with the exception of the document delay on Wells Fargo’s end, presented no problems at all. It was a miracle, in retrospect. I will probably close more than 100 homes again this year and, when I can count smooth closings on one hand, I consider myself and those around me fortunate.
No agent is an island in this business. I might be a rock but I am not an island. I need my team members, escrow officer, transaction coordinator, lenders, title company, appraisers, office assistants and, most important, the agent on the other side to successfully close.
The trick is to not burden the client with every little hiccup in a transaction. That’s one of the reasons home sellers and buyers hire a Sacramento real estate agent — it’s to be a buffer. This doesn’t mean we don’t disclose what’s going on, but there are some behind-the-scenes situations that don’t affect the parties and the parties might be better off not hearing about it, until it closes, if ever. There is no reason on god’s green earth to make other people miserable if they can be spared.
That’s why Powers that Be created real estate agents. We are the ones who often bear the brunt of the transaction. We take the punches so our clients don’t have to.
The agent I worked with on this last transaction was wonderful. She worked tirelessly to meet the demands of the escrow, and I would eagerly work with her again in a heartbeat. Many agents are fabulous in this business and will do whatever it takes to close. In the beginning, though, her buyer was a little bit wary and not as optimistic as his agent.
The home that sold was newer, built in 2010, so we weren’t overly worried about defects or problems, although every single home on the face of the planet will have some kind of defect. There are no perfect homes out there. But because so many escrows lately have developed problems midway through after buyers discover a small defect and suddenly wanted to renegotiate or lower the price, the seller, on advice from a legal friend, elected to be upfront about what she expected. Cut off that behavior at the pass.
In the counter offer, she explained the Sacramento home was sold in its AS IS condition. Yes, that verbiage is in the contract, but few pay attention to it. She simply asked the buyer to agree not to request repairs nor try to renegotiate, regardless of what a home inspection may reveal. The buyer was worried that he could not cancel, but after he thought about it he realized that was not really a valid concern. The seller wanted assurance of some sort that when she removed her home from the market, the buyer would not continue to negotiate.
She wanted the AS IS clause to mean AS IS. Not maybe. There are buyers in Sacramento who have no intention of closing on the sales price they offer. They know it when they write the offer. These types of buyers plan to further reduce the price after the home has been removed from the market for a few weeks. That’s a sneaky way to do business.
Some buyers don’t know when the negotiations have ended. Some negotiations, on the the other hand, never end. But this one did. It stopped at the counter offer. The buyers agreed and the escrow closed, as they say in Shakespeare, without further ado, sigh no more.
