Category: Real Estate Law

Putting your house on the market and waiting for it to sell can be a long, exhausting process. Attracting the right buyers at the right price points can be difficult, especially when the market is not in your favor. While already daunting enough, this process becomes even more challenging when the property...

"This storm will be like nothing the state has ever seen." – Governor Rick Scott’s warning regarding Hurricane Irma in 2017. Each year as hurricane season rolls around, Floridians across the state begin preparing for the worst. As tracked storms get closer to the Florida coast, emergency response teams prepare to...

If you’ve ever purchased a home or a piece of land, you’ve likely heard the term “title insurance”. What is title insurance and why might you need it? Title insurance is a crucial yet often overlooked aspect of the home buying process. While most homeowners are familiar with the concept of homeowners’...

Best Practices when Reporting Hurricane Damage to your Insurance Company Hurricane Ian has devastated our lives, homes, and businesses in the SWFL area. Reuters reports insurance losses up to $60 billion. The damage from Hurricane Ian is one of the largest in insurance losses from a catastrophe second only to Hurricane...

When engaging in a real estate transaction, buyers and sellers have many responsibilities.  One responsibility that may seem counter-intuitive and even unfair is that in a particular circumstance the buyer is responsible for withholding, reporting, and remitting to the Internal Revenue Service the Seller’s taxes on money realized from the...

Many investors have found real estate to be an attractive vehicle to protect and grow their investment.  Sometimes, an investor may wish to sell one piece of real estate and immediately invest in another. When this happens, investors need to be able to sell one property and purchase another without incurring the capital gains and depreciation...

Buyer (and Seller) Beware... It goes without saying that the real estate market in Southwest Florida is on fire right now. We have heard story after story of houses selling before they are even listed on the market. In this extremely fast-paced market, we have seen many buyers and...

Florida property owners often have to receive approval from associations and/or government agencies for changes to their property ranging from landscaping to major construction projects. What is a property owner to do when the association or agency giving the approval changes their position and revokes the initial approval? The answer...

With its many seasonal residents, it is unfortunately common for property owners here in the Sunshine State to find someone living in their Florida vacation home.  But what to do when that happens? Fortunately, Florida law offers some solutions to removing the squatter by either an Unlawful Detainer Action (Fla. Stat. 82)...

In February of 2020, Florida’s unemployment rate was 2.8% according to the Federal Reserve Economic Data and the U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.  This was the lowest the State’s unemployment rate had been in over forty years.  However, as the COVID 19 crisis and the associated shut-downs and slow-downs...