Last week, I blogged about whether you have to disclose a crime that once occurred in your home. Today’s question: do you have to disclose the neighbours? Generally speaking, as long as you aren’t asked, you don’t have to disclose anything about the neighbourhood. You...
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real estate law
Ghosts in your home
In 1996, in a home in Bowmanville, Ron England stabbed his mother and stepdaughter to death while suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. In the fall of 2011, Eric and Sade-Lea Tekoniemi purchased the property. Once they discovered the events that had occurred years...
Signing for yourself
I have blogged before about arranging for a power of attorney in case anything needs to be done on your transaction while you are away. Today, I wanted to talk about running the entire deal through a power of attorney – when you are the purchaser. As a vendor, using a...
Fees, fees and more fees
Buying a condo? Then you should be extra careful about what the monthly fees will be. Generally, the status certificate will show what the current fees are. It will also state whether the condo board anticipates any special assessments in the near future. Most...
Survey says
Almost all real estate deals will come into my office with a provision for the seller to provide a survey. If you are selling, be careful: you don’t want to offer more than you have. First, to be a survey, it must have a proper mark on it from a licenced surveyor....
Alarming
Many more people these days have alarm systems. These systems, like a hot water heater, are often rentals that are to be assumed by the buyer of the home. Be careful, however: sometimes they have particular rules about assumption, and sometimes the buyer will not want...
Inspecting the inspectors
Jeff Lem is a well-known real estate lawyer in Toronto. He wrote this article several weeks ago for the Law Times, and it caught my attention: the province of Ontario is looking at bringing in regulations for home inspectors. Currently, only British Columbia regulates...
Buying bookshelves
In my home office, I have three large IKEA bookshelves. I acquired them separately over the years, but made sure to always buy the same exact model and finish so that, now that they are in a row on the same wall, they look like a beautiful, built-in shelf, where all...
Closing time
There are a lot of important considerations before you confirm that you have enough funds to be able to close: down payment, legal fees, moving trucks, etc. Here's another: tax adjustments. Depending on where you live, your city will charge property taxes every so...
Rentals to be assumed
Most people (in Ontario, anyway) rent their hot water heaters. What happens when you sell your house? Most agreements will provide that the hot water tank rental is to be assumed by the buyer. Generally, this is quite simple; if your rental is through Enbridge, as...