Love's Real Stories

Sad Facts

Here in California sellers of real estate are obligated to disclose everything from cat dander to noisy neighbors. We have some of the toughest disclosure laws in the nation.

Not so in Pennsylvania. Just ask Janet Milliken, who moved from California to Pennsylvania and bought a house unaware a murder-suicide had taken place on the property the year before, and no one told her.

Janet’s husband had recently died, and she left California with their two daughters to be closer to family. In the small town of Thornton, Pennsylvania, Janet found a two-story home for sale on a quiet street. She made the purchase and the family moved in, ready to start a new life.

Not surprisingly, soon after Janet moved into her new home a neighbor asked, “So you heard about what happened in your house, right?” The neighbor told Janet the facts of the story that everyone else on the street already knew: A former owner of the property had shot and killed his wife and then himself in the master bedroom of the home. A few months later, the home was bought at an auction by Joseph and Kathleen Jacono, who knew of the murder-suicide, and a few months after that, sold it to Janet Milliken. The Jaconos bought the place for $450,000 and sold it to Janet for $610,000.

After Milliken learned the truth, she struggled with what to say to her kids or whether to even tell them at all. Then the kids had friends over to visit, who broke the news.

“Janet’s kids were very upset and disturbed,” said Milliken’s attorney. “They were already dealing with the death of their father.”

Janet wants the sale rescinded, and her money back. She and the kids would prefer to leave, but can’t afford to without selling the house.

“I would in good conscience have to disclose the horrible tragedy if I sold, and I know the house would sell for far less than I paid,” said Janet.

Janet has filed a law suit against the seller and their Realtor.

Pennsylvania is a few thousand miles from California, but apparently it is light years away in the world of disclosure. In California, death on a property is a disclosure no-brainer. All sellers here are required by law to disclose any death on a property within the last three years. California sellers are also obligated to disclose any “material fact” that would “affect the value or desirability” of a property, regardless of the three-year rule.

Janet Milliken’s Pennsylvania seller argues they faced no such requirement.

If Janet Milliken had bought her house in California, and the seller hid the fact of a murder-suicide, that seller would be a dead-bang loser in a lawsuit. Janet would undoubtedly have all her money back and more.

Can a seller in Pennsylvania really get away with such non-disclosure?

The trial judge ruled in favor of the seller. Milliken has appealed to the State Supreme Court.

Milliken’s attorney said, “We hope to have Pennsylvania recognize that having a horrific event occur within a property can be just as damaging and troubling to a future homeowner as a physical defect, or perhaps even more so. Physical defects in a house can be fixed. Something like this never goes away.”

The attorney said that sellers should be required to disclose troubling events, “at least for a period of time.”

That should be a no-brainer.

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February 20, 2014

Laws of Moving

Claudia planned the move to her new house in the most organized fashion I had ever seen. That’s what troubled me. She was obviously unaware of the Laws of Moving.

“Claudia,” I said, “I hope you realize you are tempting the hands of fate.” I told her about the Laws of Moving, one of which states: “The more carefully you plan and organize your move, the more you invite Catastrophe, Chaos, and Breakage”.

The Laws of Moving have caused well-meaning people like Claudia to drop to their knees, slam their fists on the ground, wail, and gnash their teeth while experiencing Catastrophe, Chaos, and Breakage.

“Oh really,” she said absentmindedly.

Claudia went recklessly ahead. She had neatly arranged on her kitchen counter color-coded room-by-room checklists, and a pamphlet called “Moving Tips to Make Your Life Easier,” in clear contempt of the Laws of Moving.

Making matters worse, Claudia stood at the kitchen table, and with the efficiency of an assembly line worker, stuffed glassware into freshly cleaned socks, then Saran-wrapped the socks into bundles, then loaded the bundles into a knee-high box. With stickers and a Sharpie she clearly labeled the box: “Kitchen/Upper cabinets/Glassware.” When she had filled four such boxes she slid them together in the middle of the kitchen floor and whipped out a great two-handled stretch-wrap roller. She zipped around the boxes three times, snapped the plastic sheeting and stood back and admired her work. The four boxes stood together as one, encased in plastic, wrapped as tightly as a mummy. A chill went down my spine.

Sometimes people violate the Laws of Moving and get away with it. Not Claudia; not this time.

Unexpected Catastrophe descended upon Claudia’s moving day like a thunder-cloud. In fact it was an actual thunder-cloud which became a booming thunder-storm. Claudia’s front porch, steps and walkway developed a soapy slickness as a result of her recent cleaning and washing. Two moving-men crashed to the ground while juggling Claudia’s unwieldy and now-slippery plastic-encased box creations, which began the Breakage, not to mention injuries to the moving-men, the loss of which started the Chaos.

I stood with Claudia at the end of moving day, amongst her soggy and scattered belongings.

“Things could be worse,” I said. But she was preoccupied with fist-slamming, wailing, and gnashing of teeth.

I sensed it was not a good time to mention again the Laws of Moving.

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February 17, 2014

Technology and Time

Technology has evolved to the point of perfection. We can now complete a real estate transaction, start to finish, without the use of a single piece of paper, a pen, or a stamp. It wasn’t long ago we stood awestruck in the presence of an electric typewriter and a piece of carbon paper. The speed! We were so dumbfounded we dropped our hammers, chisels, and stone tablets. Carbon copies never looked right, though; all blue and fuzzy. At least with the hammers and chisels every copy had the same quality as the original.

The fax machine was a wonder unto itself.

“It’s a what?” somebody asked, “It looks like a typewriter.”

“It’s a fax machine, a typewriter-telephone,” said somebody else. “Just don’t answer it when it rings.”

But often as not, somebody answered it. “Yeow!” they’d say, pulling the receiver away from their head, “what’s that awful screech?”

“Somebody’s trying to fax.”

“Well they better knock it off!”

When a fax document arrived, the machine chattered, rattled, and whined. The document would appear haltingly, little by little, letter by letter, word by word, line by line. The sender of the fax would show up at the office.

“Hey,” said the receiver of the fax, “I’m just receiving your fax.”

“I know,” said the sender, “but I was only ten miles away. I thought it would be faster if I brought you the original.”

“Yeah. Can’t beat that technology, though, right?”

These days, there’s no need to fax, copy or mail. No paper! Everything is electronic; just send, send, send.

The technology of social media is unparalleled. We can keep clients informed instantly with all aspects of the real estate market, at all times. Just the other day I heard two Realtors discussing the wonders of social media.

“Hey, you know the Johnsons over on Camilla Street?” said one. “They’re my Facebook friend, they follow my tweets, they subscribe to my blog, and they get my e-newsletter every month. So how come they listed their house with you?”

“I knocked on their door,” said the other.

“You mean, in p-p-p-p-p?”

“Yeah, in person. Can’t beat that technology, though, right?”

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February 7, 2014

The Heart of the Deal

Guess which of these Old-World phrases is found in all modern-day real estate contracts:

“E Pluribus Unum”; or “Time is of the Essence”; or “Thou Shalt Not Kill”?

My old mentor, KDV, knew real estate contract language the way you and I know our own names. KDV spoke Old-World dialect, too. He said things like, “Right on, brother”; and “She’s a great broad”; and “Man, that’s some jive turkey.”

KDV loved to point to real-life situations to demonstrate the meaning of contract language. A good example of the phrase in question is a situation in which KDV himself was involved.

KDV fired up his hand-rolled cigarette and leaned against the back door of our office building. He snapped shut the Zippo lighter, and motioned his thumb toward the parking place where his car was parked a few feet away. “This dame just doesn’t get it, babe.”

“You mean the little grey-haired lady in the back seat of your car? I’ve noticed she’s been riding around with you for a while,” I said. “Is that a cat on her shoulder? And what’s that on the front the seat, a beanstalk?”

“It’s a rubber plant, man. Her dog is on the floor, and her suitcase and boxes are in the trunk.”

“Where are you taking her?”

“You got any room out at your place, bro?”

“Sorry, my house is packed with kids, and we just got another horse, so the barn is full, too.”

The little grey-haired lady in KDV’s car was one Mrs. Swenson, who had just sold her home through KDV. Mrs. Swenson was mad at everyone, and refused to leave, though she no longer owned the home. The buyer’s moving van was idling in the driveway when KDV convinced her she really had to leave.

“She doesn’t get what?” I asked.

“Only the most important language in all binding agreements between members of the human race!” he said. His voice climbed in volume. “Only the clause empowering enforcement of the promise we make to each other to act with diligence in the performance of our contractual obligations!”

He stared into my face, apparently hoping for a glimmer of comprehension. Finding only the dim look of a cow chewing its cud, he said patiently, “Come on, sweetheart, you remember Contract Class, right? It’s the phrase that keeps us all on the straight and narrow.”

“Thou shalt not kill?”

“Ha! Very funny, Jokemeister! You are joking…..?

“E Pluribus Unum? I asked.”

My mentor lowered his head and shook it slowly. Then he straightened up and stood tall like the Statue of Liberty, chin up, and arm held high, clutching his cigarette like the statue’s flaming torch of enlightenment.

In his deepest booming voice he pronounced: “Time is of the Essence!”

Mrs. Swenson stared at him through the car window and shook her head, as if she had heard this before. KDV continued his pronouncement: “Time is of the Essence, my brother! The contract is speaking to us. It is telling us the timelines are for real. It sayeth thou shalt not ignore, bend or mutilate the contract deadlines or thou couldst lose some serious bread!”

He nodded toward Mrs. Swenson. “I had to save this dear damsel from the distress from a lawsuit,” he said. “I talked her down off the ledge of contractual suicide. One more day in that house would have cost her big-time, babe.”

“Wow,” I said, “what now?”

“Well, right now, I gotta hustle for home. I’m late for a lunch date with my wife, and she knows what I know, babe.”

“What’s that?”

“Time is of the Essence!”

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January 16, 2014

Wrong and Right

If you want to see into the future, you just have to know where to look. For instance, if you’re going to see into the future of the real estate market, you need look no further than right here. After years of researching magazines, newspapers, and websites for the most reliable real estate prognosticators, I have discovered the best one right here in the North Valley.

The prognosticator of whom I speak, AJ, has a bad track record for predicting the future of the real estate market. He’s been wrong ten years in a row. But that’s the key. AJ is so reliably lousy, all you have to do is listen to his predictions, and then go with the opposite.

I called AJ.

“So what you are telling me,” said AJ, “is that people perceive my conjectures and estimations of market projections, which I base upon thorough research and data compilation, as somehow inaccurate?”

“Yes.”

“In what way do they express such a perception?”

“They say that you are wrong,” I said.

“Preposterous,” he said. “My predictions are many-factored and should not be dismissed in one broad stroke.”

I reminded him of his prediction for the market in 2006, the worst year for a downturn in the history of the market since the Great Depression. His prediction at the time was: “Prices are rising and they won’t stop now. The three most important words in real estate for 2006 are buy, buy, buy.”

AJ admitted to a “slight inaccuracy” in that prediction.

“My words were taken greatly out of context, which caused a knee-jerk reaction among the less enlightened,” he said.

I asked if by “knee-jerk reaction” he was referring to the flaming arrows stuck in his door, and the ‘yelp’ comments on the internet which had to be deleted because of foul language and violent intent.

“Quite unfortunate and very unenlightened.” he said.

I reminded him of his 100% wrong-prediction record from that time until now.

“My words have been taken out of content, and greatly misconstrued,” he said.

I asked him his prediction for 2014.

“The overall economy cannot sustain the slight rise in the real estate market we saw last year. Activity will decrease and we will experience devaluation. I regret being the bearer of bad news.”

Coming from AJ, that’s good news.

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