Real Estate

A real estate agent and title officer may be all you need to walk through the process of selling your Florida home. However, real estate transactions are cumbersome to navigate. Pages of reports, disclosures, and contracts can unsettle the best of us, often making it a wise choice to engage legal counsel when selling your home.

So, how do you know who to hire? And, do you find yourself questioning, “Should I hire a real estate attorney to sell my Florida home?” Let’s examine circumstances that support hiring Read more . . .

With 13.3% of the more than 20 million individuals who reside in Florida renting their place of residence, Florida has one of the largest populations of renters in the country. That is why it is so important for the tenants to understand some of the most important basics of Florida real estate law. Here are just a few. 

Can my landlord really charge that much for a security deposit?

Yes.
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When you are leasing your property out to someone, it is important that you have your tenants sign a lease or rental agreement in order to protect yourself. It is equally important to ensure that all terms and obligations (as well as the rights of both the landlord and the tenant) are clearly laid out within the lease. However, state law under the Florida Residential Landlord Tenant Act, always overrides the contract. That is why it is in your best interest as the landlord to familiarize yourself with the Florida Landlord Tenant Laws in order to be sure that your lease doesn’t contradict what the state law says. Additionally, there are certain laws that you should always follow as a landlord.
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Zoning laws, while obviously designed with important purposes in mind, are not as consistent as one might expect. Although some suburban or even urban communities, usually those with very expensive homes, may be clearly separated from anything remotely connected to business or industry, others, usually those with low-income homes, are often dotted with various non-residential entities, such as auto repair shops, grocery stores, bars and factories.

The underlying purpose of zoning is to separate different types of real estate that are thought to be incompatible in order to  preserve their appearance and value and to encourage what seems to be the most appropriate use of the land in question. If you are involved in a zoning dispute, it is essential to have a Read more . . .

Title refers to the legal ownership of a piece of property. And while most real estate transactions are free of title problems, complications do occasionally arise. Below are some common real estate title problems encountered by the purchasers and sellers of property in Florida.

• Easements – Easements are limited third-party property rights, and they can affect an individual’s control of his or her property. However, easements are not always disclosed to property purchasers, making it imperative that they are sought early in the home purchasing process.
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