Beverly Hills Real Estate blog Tuesday8-05-08

The Beverly Hills Real Estate blog.

Brokers Caravan Tuesday - the preview day for new properties on the market.  Today hot and steamy with 85 predicted for downtown.  How to keep cool?  When I was a kid, my grand father on my dad's side used to take paper wads soaked on water and put them behind his ears to stay cool.  You know, like little spit balls behind th ears.  My brothers and I tried it, course it never worked for us, it's amazing the things you remember from your childhood.

 If we see any "great deals" out there we will let you know.  We're reachable through www.patandmelody.com  Call us!

 Big legislative real estate news from the California Association of Realtors.

 C.A.R. Opposes Another Point-of-Sale Mandate!

 C.A.R. OPPOSES AB 2204 (De La Torre), which would require county lawyers to review every deed and other related documents, including CC&Rs, and remove illegal, obsolete and unenforceable restrictions from historic title records in connection with a transfer of property. County recorders would have to charge a huge fee for the review and editing of these documents. C.A.R. opposes this ill-advised measure because AB 2204 would add $500 - $1,000 in costs to transactions without actually protecting anyone from discrimination.

 Existing law already invalidates any provision in a deed of real property that restricts the right of a person to sell, lease, rent, use, or occupy the property based on race, color, religion, sex, marital status, national origin, ancestry, familial status, disability, source of income, or sexual orientation.

 AB 2204 has been approved by the Assembly and is currently making its way through the Senate. This bill will be voted on by the Senate Appropriations committee this Thursday! Your Senator is a member of this committee.

 Action Item

 Please call Senator Mark Ridley-Thomas TODAY to urge him or her to vote NO on AB 2204.

 C.A.R. Opposes AB 2204 Because:

 Current law already protects buyers and renters from discrimination.  This bill ignores multiple existing responses to ancient unconstitutional covenants and deed restrictions (the latest of which was approved only last year), and instead attempts to impose a new program upon real estate transactions and Recorders.  Existing mechanisms already deal with the issue effectively.

 AB 2204 creates another financial burden for home buyers.  Searching and purging old documents will cost literally tens of millions of dollars. These costs will be added to those which a buyer already must pay at closing, when they can least afford it.

 AB 2204 would be very costly to counties. L.A. County alone estimates that it will have to read the documents related to 17,000 transactions every month! If there is only a single deed in each of these transactions that needs to be rewritten, it will cost L.A. County at least 27 new lawyers in legal costs alone. However, it is extremely unlikely that these transactions will have only a single document that needs to be rewritten since every deed and CC&R in the chain of title will have to be reviewed.  Not every county is as large as L.A., but every county will have the same expensive problem.  Counties will undoubtedly try to build the cost into increased recording fees, fees that will be paid by homebuyers.

 AB 2204 diverts attention from critical real estate disclosures.  Homebuyers are already faced with a daunting stack of disclosures and documents to sign.  This bill proposes to add to that burden, but without any legal benefit.

 AB 2204 seeks to erase history. Philosopher George Santayana said, "Those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it." Rather than pretend that such egregious discrimination never existed by attempting to "sanitize" the record, isn't it wiser for the record to reflect what happened historically so society can continue to learn from its past mistakes?

 That's it for today.  See you tomorrow!