If you are a real estate broker or real estate attorney and you have a strong interest in real estate issues and trends that impact the daily operations of real estate brokerages, then you may want to join the list serv Dirt or BrokerDirt by clicking here.

What is Dirt and BrokerDirt?  Dirt and BrokerDirt are real estate listservs moderated by Professor Patrick Randolph at the University of Missouri - Kansas City's School of Law.  Dirt is a forum more oriented towards real estate attorneys and BrokerDirt is more oriented towards residential real estate brokers. 

These sites receive funding and assistance from the American Bar Association's Section for Real Property, Probate and Trust Law and the University of Missouri - Kansas City's School of Law.   However, the editorial content is not controlled by either of the sponsoring entities and represents the opinions and insights of Professor Patrick Randolph, his talented panel members, and the subscribers to the listservs.

How can Dirt and BrokerDirt assist brokers?  Subscribers to the Dirt and BrokerDirt list servs receive all messages posted to the list servers.  This can range from 2 to 20 e-mails per day.  There are generally two types of messages posted. 

• Daily Developments:  There is a Daily Development usually written by Professor Randolph that discusses and analyzes a reported appellate case.  These messages are similar (but more in-depth) to the posts that you will see either on the National Association of Realtor's website or in state and local association's newsletters covering legal developments in yours state.  Here is an example of a Daily Development on the issue of judicial standards for confirmation of judicial foreclosures.
• Q&A:  The remaining posts are often questions and answers on hot topics.  For example, are you looking for a summary of the Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan?  Ask and you would receive a response that would include links like the following:  http://www.sonnenschein.com/pubs/pub_detail.aspx?id=49634&type=E-Alerts# or http://www.parealtor.org/content/currentissues.htm.

Any Other Benefits?  Visit the Dirt Website for contributed files (including articles, editorials, forms and other files), for a search engine to search the Dirt archives, or to see a list of articles by year (e.g. 2008).

What does it cost to join Dirt and Broker Dirt?  Nothing - it is absolutely FREE.

If you are interested in selling or buying a home in St. Louis and want to work with a sales staff that stays in front of current trends, contact Ryan Shaughnessy at PREA Signature Realty at 314-971-4381 or by e-mail to Ryan@PREASignatureRealty.com.

Daily Developments from 2008:

• 01/11 Reliving your life when your client turns on you!!!
• 01/14 Editor now turns on closers and title examiners - should privity limitations be preserved?
• 01/15 New case on title insurer liability to relying plaintiffs not in privity
• 01/17 Can sophisticated parties waive damages claims for ANY breach of lease - leaving only equitable remedies and arbitration? Any???
• 01/18 Letter of Credit Guarantee may not qualify for contribution against personal guarantors - draft around it!!!
• 01/22 purposes of registered title, knowledge of line and poles on land does not constitute "actual knowledge" to destroy "good faith" of purchaser relying on certificate to show no easement
• 01/24 Although grantor wouldn't have given deed had he known it was irrevocable by law, the delivery is still good.
• 01/25 "No business" rule bars big, licensed neighborhood child care, but not small, unlicensed ones
• 01/28 What must condemnor do to "negotiate in good faith?" 
• 02/01 Can you challenge ONLY the land appraisal part of a tax appraisal of an improved parcel?
• 02/05 Do water appropriation rights obtained by lessee revert to lessor at lease end?
• 02/06 Can lessee of service station, terminated on account of pending condemnation, share in condemnation award under the Fifth Amendment? How 'bout under Petroleum Marketing Practices Act?
• 02/08 Antitrust issues when tenants "go dark aggressively"
• 02/09 DIRT's first oil and gas lease interpretation
• 02/11 Six years of planted trees can terminate area of easement where they're planted.
• 02/12 Latest RLUIPA conundrum: mixing temples and taverns 
• 04/01 May Court Constitutionally construe an "Act of God" clause, and what happens if it can't? 
• 06/30 Tenant preserves parking rights despite "changed circumstances" argument based on modern shopping center design.
• 07/01 Can landowners collect "stigma" damages when they have suffered no loss of use or physical damage?
• 07/02 Joint Tenancy Severance Gets Easier and Easier.
• 07/03 Can one insure oneself against punitive damages
• 07/07 Tenant's liquidated damages remedy for breach of exclusive use
• 07/08 Equitable servitude binds with notice, even though not part of deed or common plan
• 07/09 Stealing the house from the foreclosure threatened owner_ No harm, no foul
• 07/10 Landowner-friendlier approach to delinquent taxpayer notice issue from New Mexico court
• 07/11 Lender may cancel foreclosure even after sale has occurred (but prior to court confirmation) in order to facilitate short sale by borrower
• 07/14 Failure to index properly eminent domain taking costs town its property after two decades
• 07/15 Executed Licenses The real deal
• 07/16 Good news and bad news for brokers on misrepresentation issue
• 07/17 If Developer jumps maintenance fee, can buyer rescind
• 07/18 The developing trend foreclosing mortgagees must work harder to prove ownership of debt - affidavit of ownership maybe not sufficient
• 07/21 Is presence of sex offender next door a breach of habitability
• 07/22 Condemning authority loses (thirty years later) in curious title case
• 07/23 Dramatically lower sale price, due to trustee's error, valid in anti-deficiency situation
• 07/24 Highway lights kill crops - a taking YESS!!!
• 07/25 Breach of contract of sale by vendor maybe a violation of a state Unfair Practices Act
• 07/28 When your contracted environmental clean up specialist in fact spills more gunk - are you an operator
• 07/29 Conflict between statutory and lease renewal-termination language
• 07/30 Supreme rule on transfer taxes and bktcy reorgs
• 07/31 Easy for buyer to be seen as waiving financing contingency 
• 08/01 Another refinancing lender scores subrogation - it's getting easier!
• 08/04 Lender gets a break on reading of satisfaction statute
• 08/05 Perpetuities Rule undoes corporate developer on buy back right
• 08/06 Is parking of commercial vehicles in the driveway a violation of no business subdivision restriction
• 08/07 Mineral lessor's nuisance damages for lessee's contamination of lessor's estate - permanent damages concept abandoned
• 08/08 Lender's duty to catch foreclosure rescue scam artists
• 08/11 Bankruptcy won't permit cure post statutory redemption
• 08/12 Georgia decides creation of mortgage by one joint tenant is not a severance
• 08/13 Adding square footage to a preexisting nonconforming use
• 08/14 Even though broker unlicensed, seller pays commission when attempting to take advantage
• 08/15 Can long term take out lender to homebuyer be subrogated to construction lender to construction lender
• 08/18 Can same brokerage, acting as buyer's broker, submit offers from two different buyers
• 08/19 Does priority for modifications clause permit future advance
• 08/20 If you want to rely on financing condition - STOP!!!
• 08/21 Secondary market purchaser may have duty to prevent predatory lending by its seller-mortgage brokers
• 08/22 Does bankruptcy mootness doctrine preclude objections to free and clear sale Maybe not
• 08/25 The problem of uniform zoning requirements and development agreements
• 08/26 Two Eminent Domain Access Cases Worth Studying
• 08/27 City can deny building permit, even with validly zoned project, if it concludes that project is not feasible
• 08/28 Subsequent purchasers on notice of judicial foreclosure file as to otherwise unrecorded information
• 08/29 RV park as a property tax exempt activity Why not 
• 09/02 When the Government takes an easement to excavate, can it reuse the dirt
• 09/03 When are diminution in value damages not enough to compensate for nuisance-trespass
• 09/04 You used to be able to see the water from here_ _ _ Is government liable for obstructing water view
• 09/05 If a zoning applicant lies in prior application, can zoning board take this into account in subsequent variance proceedings
• 09/08 Landlord's acquiescence in defaults through one renewal prevent raising defaults to block later renewal, despite anti-waiver clause
• 09/09 If you have a building permit, can you avoid spite fence restrictions
• 09/10 Does broker have duty to disclose to other side client's financial problems that might prevent closing (Revisited)
• 09/11 Transfer of adversely possessed property valid vs_ BFP's
• 09/12 Does common enemy doctrine permit diversion of wet area
• 09/15 Real estate sale agreement becomes unenforceable free option_ Oops!!
• 09/16 Partition lawsuit brought by one joint tenant does not, upon filing, create a severance, and, upon death before final decision in the partition suit, death by one joint tenant creates title in the other and the partition
• 09/17 Cal_ court finds landlord has duty to inspect interior of premises to protect against personal injuries while a writ of possession is pending and tenant remains in control
• 09/18 Important Kansas ruling bites MERS on its nominee status_ No right to be named in foreclosure by senior of the MERS held interest
• 09/19 Can you both adversely possess and permit the true owner use of the land
• 09/22 Title by prescription - a different concept from adverse possession - gets different disability rule 
• 10/07 Excluding Terrorism as a covered risk under Fire and Extended Coverage policy is against public policy in New York
• 10/08 Buyer's specific performance case morphs into damages action with lots of twists
• 10/09 Recharacterization foils Home Foreclosure Rescue Scheme
• 10/10 A seal is a mammal that swims, but why should it make a difference in real estate deals
• 10/13 Can a disappointed purchaser challenge a fiduciary sale approved by probate court
• 10/14 If you don't obtain the cancellation of a refinanced HELOC, it stays open, to your peril
• 10/15 Are mechanic's liens subject to lis pendens notice in foreclosure of senior mortgage where their priority predates date of foreclosure notice, but not the mortgage itself
• 10/16 Federal courts (including bankruptcy) may not retry issues that have been resolved in state court
• 10/17 Overlaps onto neighboring property constitute insured defects in marketability when survey clause is deleted__EML
• 10/21 Renewal rent cap based upon another named tenant or successors becomes irrelevant when named tenant goes defunct and space is subdivided
• 10/22 Does a sale to a family member for less than fair value trigger a refusal right
• 10/23 Easement for telephone poles can grow into right to install wireless communications equipment
• 10/24 Italian Cowboy Creamed in Court disclaimer and ratification problems undo fraud claim
• 10/27 Limiting frustrated buyer's claims when trustee breaches auction contract
• 10/28 Indemnification, suretyship, subrogation - nothing works for guarantors of principle lease to get at assigns
• 10/29 Untimely lease renewal will court require very good excuse, even where dire economic loss will result
• 10/30 Halloween Mechanics Lien for Disposing of Gooey Remains of Corpse_EML 
• 11/03 Timber rights reserved in grantor, heirs and assigns is only a temporary right, ending after a reasonable period
• 11/04 Waiving the Landlord's anti-waiver language on lease assignments
• 11/05 What standard should be used by courts in considering confirmation of a judicial foreclosure sale
• 11/06 Purchaser of 22 year old tax redemption right is BFP with regard to efforts to foreclose such right if foreclosing party didn't record notices of foreclosure
• 11/07 Tax Appraisal Blues entreprenurial profit and functional obsolescence both losing issues for landowner
• 11/10 Virginia takes Statute of Frauds seriously - seller can contract with another if details of first deal not resolved in writing
• 11/11 Big fraud, but no subrogation_ A little lesson in equity
• 11/12 Rerouting traffic may have the same effect on landowner as restricting access, but it's not inverse condemnation
• 11/13 Class actions for mortgagee's breach of prompt discharge statutes may add up
• 11/14 Do borrower's foreclosure defenses survive bankrupt lender's 363 free and clear sale of mortgage assets