The petition for Clay County has been certified. They have 27 additional signatures. This means that there will be a special election in September. On the ballot will be do you want alcohol sales in Clay County!!

This was in the Associated Press: Buried in a housing law signed last week by President Barack Obama are protections that will help thousands of renters stay in their homes — at least for a while — after their landlords have been foreclosed on.

The law allows tenants to remain in their foreclosed rentals through the end of their leases and then 90 days after that before being forced to vacate by lenders. Renters without leases will have 90 days, a big improvement over what most received before: almost no notice at all.

“Until this law was enacted, there had been no national protections for any of these households,” said Linda Couch, deputy director at the National Low Income Housing Coalition. “This gives renters time to adjust their lives.”

This is an excellent law. I have already had to deal with this and it is such a problem for tenants.

Liquor sales in Hayesville

For the past couple of months there has been a lot of activity in Hayesville. There are petition going around to have liquor sales in Hayesville. They need approximately 2900 people to sign the petition in order to have this issue put on the ballot to vote. There has been much controversy over this issue. The "Church group" thinks that liquor is bad and should not be allowed in the county. The other side feels that Clay County needs these additional dollars coming to the county instead of going to Towns County and Cherokee County. The petition now has approximately 2500 signed and confirmed signatures. The deadline for  having the 2900 signatures is June 1 if they do not have all the signatures they will have to start over again.

This has been a very interesting event to watch. I personally hope it passes. Clay County needs the additional income as many counties do in this difficult times.

What a month!!! Banks are going crazy and not being very nice. Everyone is in the defensive mood. My company is in a rural area and has not been effected with the quantity of  foreclosures like in major cities. Most of the foreclosures have been on homes that are spec home s and have no one living in the houses. 

In the past few weeks I have dealt with 3 different banks and they all have an attitude.  The latest one called me and said they want me to begin paying them the rent on an apartment complex. I asked if they had foreclosed on the property and they said no but they have the right to collect the rents because the owner had signed a deed of trust securing future advances. I asked for the  documentation and this arrogant banker said, "You don't need documentation. Just send the rent". Not a very nice way to deal with people, is it?

Who would you think would be responsible for replacing/repairing the locks on this house? Here is the situation. Tenant comes home and all the doors have been vandalized and she can not get into the house. She calls us to come fix the locks so she can get inside. She then called the police to report the crime. 

Here is the answer. Since she filed a police report, the owner was responsible for the damage. If she had not filed a report then she would be responsible.

Later on she told me that her ex husband had admitted to doing it but there was no way to prove it since it was her word against his. 

Question: What do I do if a  neighbor's tree is hanging over in my yard and it is damaging my car.

The owner of the tree is NOT required to trim his tree off of the neighbor’s yard. You cannot prevent them from trimming it. You are allowed to trim or cut the neighbors tree up to your property line, provided it does not cause irreparable long term harm to the tree. They are NOT allowed to come on your property to conduct the work unless they have an easement. The power company has an easement and can enter your property to trim trees, but the easement is their property, sort of. The power company will usually inform you that they are entering your property, but they are not asking your permission. In addition, you must use know safe trimming practices to prevent further damage to the tree. For example, if your cutting killed the tree you might have a liability issue. Unsightliness is not the issue, only death of the tree. If your tree is hanging on some one else’s property, you are not required to trim it off their property. That was just the way the tree grew. You cannot prevent them from trimming it off of their property.

Update on the rental market in the mountains

Long term rentals- They are picking up and something surprising is that we are renting $1000 a month and $325 a month units. The units in the middle are having a hard time right now. For the first time owners are reduce the rent on an existing tenant in order to keep the tenant in the unit. Tenants are shopping and negotiating lower rents. Please keep this in mind as leases are expiring on your properties. In March we rented 5 properties and just in the 7 days of April we have leased 2 houses and have 4 more applications that will probably become new tenants.

Vacation Rentals-Here is a very interesting article in the Wall Street Journal about vacation rentals all over the country. This definitely applies to our area. If you can not pull this up then go to http://www.nytimes.com and then do a search for 2009/03/20 second-home owners-everyone into the rental pool.

http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/03/20/greathomesanddestinations/20Rent.html?fta=y

Foreclosures are now becoming a problem in the Mountains. Tenants have no rights once a home has been foreclosed. Some banks are being cooperative but not all. Today I had a phone call from a locksmith who wanted to add a lock to a property I handle. I ask why and he said that the bank wanted access to the property. I told him that the property had not been foreclosed so the bank did not own the property and had no right to change the locks. His boss called later and tried to get me to allow the lock change. I still represent the owner and have a fiduciary responsibility to protect his interests. I told the boss NO!!