Interview with Kevin Plotkin from Express Title Services and Plotkin Law Firm. Founder and real estate attorney Kevin D. Plotkin, Esq. focuses on the representation of buyers and sellers in residential and commercial real estate transactions. Mr. Plotkin regularly trains real estate professionals on all aspects of real estate transactions including, among other topics, contracts and closings.
Boss Construction Group, your South Florida permanent code compliance specialist this is one of my cool interviews that I like to do with a good friend and colleague of mine Kevin Plotkin with Xpress title what’s up man hey ben ghazi oh yeah grill you for being here yeah thanks for having us we’ve we actually worked together on so many cases which is interesting and then through that we we understand consistent problems that we’re seeing really early on in my resolution days how long have you been in the business for well we’ve had our own company now for seven years that’s awesome yeah and obviously I have a lot of experience prior to having my own company so been doing this for a long time now tell me again I’ve heard most agents out there my family’s agents again you’re an attorney owned and operated title company yeah what is what does that mean for your clients it means a lot so we have an affiliated law firm Plotkin law firm and Express Title Services is our title company both in the same office and in Florida believe it or not you don’t have to be an attorney to have a title company which to me is crazy I still see how crazy that is because when we’re dealing with companies on the other side that are not attorney owned and operated it makes the job more difficult because a lot of times they are not doing things properly and we have to hold their hand through the transaction and as an attorney from a legal standpoint I’m putting out fires and real estate deals left and right all the time from a legal perspective so when that’s not present I don’t know how that happens in fact I will I do know it doesn’t happen it’s crazy and sometimes they need to go to outside companies or when when the going gets tough and legal situations arise whether it’s a contractual issue between the parties or whether it’s a title condition that’s overly burdensome and we need to from a legal standpoint explain to the title underwriter why it’s unnecessary I’ve we are able to do that in-house and get deals closed where others couldn’t but when there’s not an attorney involved and those situations arise well then they’re stuck and they need to go to a different company now and they all of a sudden need to find outside counsel and start scrambling around for other professionals to get involved whereas with an attorney owned and operated title company were already there I’ve seen with some of the non attorney owned and operated some of them have in-house attorneys but then it was very interesting to me that and I got this feedback from other people that once they had to bring in the other attorney that was on top and more money and you’re a one-stop shop exactly so you get the benefit our fees are very competitive we charge less actually than some non attorney owned and operated title companies so with us you’re getting that benefit wrapped in into one service let’s talk about because a lot of our viewers are South Florida property owners real estate professionals people selling their property let’s just talk about the the contract hmm anything you know in again in relation to knowing about permitting and code violations early what can people also put in their contract to protect themselves if they’re the buyer the seller can you go over some of those things absolutely so you mentioned the word contract and that’s a it’s a great buzzword because and we talked of a second ago about the benefits of having an attorney on an operated title company a real estate transaction it’s a legal transaction it is controlled by a contract which is a legal document so that goes right there to explain basically one very big benefit of having an attorney involved in the transaction is at the basics at the contract level between the parties so the Florida real estate contract that is most commonly used the as-is contract it discusses what happens if we are to discover permitting issues or code violation issues on the property when we are doing our title work and vetting the property and doing those searches to see if those issues are present and one of the big changes to the contractor one of the issues that we see are that actually the language that’s in the contract is written such that if there is an open or expired building permit found actually this is what the seller needs to do is to cooperate and getting it fixed in what that means is provide any documents or plans that they may have in there possession regarding the work that was done and they need to allow access to the property for proper inspections to be done – you know in order in order to close out the problem except the one thing that it does not require them the seller to do is the most important thing which is spend any money to fix the issue so which every situation is different every amount of to resolve I mean I even know I’m on the permanent resolution side again based off the jurisdiction and the deficiencies in the property so what is what is an agent or a seller – you know to do so one of the things that we can do is we insert language into the contract that overrides the standard language it’s already in the contract so that we can make it so and we can alter it so that the seller does become financially responsible if there is an open or expired building permits you’re talking about like page 10 or 11 or an addendum where that right in the original terms we can add that in so that we can protect a buyer from the situation where now an opener expired building permit is found right after the if it’s fat sometimes they’re found you guys ordered a lien search right away day one when you get the contract but sometimes there by the time the search gets back there outside the inspection exactly so just to make sure you know everyone’s clear on everything the inspection period is the ultimate point in the contract where the buyer when during the inspection period the buyer can do their due diligence on the property and they can have their they have the right to back out of the contract for any reason what if they don’t like the way the property smell any reason any reason at all they change their mind whatever it may be it’s a during that inspection period it’s a free look they and but however once the inspection period is expiring and it’s ending that’s the ultimate point it’s like dating like we’re dating just okay just a quick coffee just the coffee okay we’re not married okay all right and so when we reach the end of the inspection period it’s the ultimate point in time where the buyer needs to make a decision are we really moving for with this deal or not and so after the inspection period ends a buyer is locked into the contract it becomes a lot more difficult for a buyer to change their mind and back out of the contract so once we get to that point in time we really want to have all the information for the buyer possible to be able to have them make the most informed decision that there is so having that information ordering the lien surgeon ordering the title searches on day one and finding out the information quickly is key for a couple different reasons we’re gonna find out the information early on so that if there are issues we can start working on them right away fast as possible so there’s no delays in the closing so basically I’ve seen loan rate locks collapse like different things with mortgages you know for some reason a buyer or seller they don’t want to extend a lease back all these yes you don’t you want you want the deal to stay on track right to move forward so having the additional language that we talked on a second ago that alters the contract and makes it so that a seller is financially responsible if there are permitting issues found to correct them that’s one layer of protection that’s if you represent the buyer correct now even though you have that language in there and we know that if there’s a permitting issue found the seller is going to be financially responsible to fix it that doesn’t automatically mean that it’s a cinch it’s still advantageous for the buyer to find out the information during the introduction period because it may not be a situation that the buyer wants to sign up for or get locked into so if it’s a permitting issue for example and it’s gonna take an extra 30 days for the seller to fix it even though the seller is required with our new language to financially pay to fix that it still may not be a situation that a buyer wants to wait around for or they may have to get their kids registered in school they may need to move quickly also every date is critical because whenever you know the agent or the property owner calls me they’re there sitting with a lien search in their hand for a couple days they go to the city they try and contract they try and contact the previous contractor and even if they are in business unfortunately because of South Florida in our business dynamic it’s hard to get people to do the right thing and the city’s keep issuing these guys permits right when they have open permits so it’s it’s pretty so so so so again like five business days is wasted from when the attorney or title company hopefully using a turning owned-and-operated one when the title company gives the the search to the agent and then the agent comes to this problem to their seller right so that is exactly the length of time it could take just to get a municipal lien search back can be a long time in itself so you don’t want to delay in placing the order for those of us out there you know we’re talking all these terms open or expired building permits municipal liens search let’s first let’s let’s over it for those so we do a title search that’s gonna search the public records for any encumbrances on the property any clouds on the title like that are recorded in the public records that we can see such as liens mortgages judgments probate those those types of exactly any probate issues that have gone on any defects in the title where the Property cannot be convey Abul exact with an open permit you can convey perfect question so then there’s also so that’s a title search however municipalities or cities have lien rights in issues such as an open or expired building permit code violations unpaid utility bills those balances may be accruing in the city but the city may have not recorded a lien yet in the public records so a title search won’t show us that way if they’re inquired I recommend with the municipality that’s sometimes we see an open sometimes you see an open permit that isn’t a code enforcement violation it depends on where it escalated in the process within that right if it’s been a long time chances are the city has record of a lien and sometimes they don’t do so right away so in that case that’s why we have to check with the city in addition to checking the title records now that’s going to reveal permitting issues yeah and I you you know you have may have touched on this before but in South Florida either the way it works with a permit what an open or expired building permit is is you and you fill in here for me but if you need to the a contractor will draw up plans for the work that’s to be done they are going to submit the plans to the city to show them city we’ll look at it make sure it’s the code and they’ll issue the permit that allows the contractor to go begin doing the work and then once the work is completed what’s supposed to happen is they’re supposed to have a final inspection when the city comes out looks at the actual work make sure sometimes there’s many instances right right thank you exactly all right you got it man throughout the process and at the end though there’s supposed to be a final inspection where the city will come out or inspections throughout the interim they’ll come out make sure the work is good to code it matches the plans and they’ll close out the permit unfortunately in South Florida here a lot of times that last step doesn’t happen and the permit remains open or worse your buyers this is very interesting about me and you before I even met you and when are we first talked you knew about this process meaning meaning because you were at the front lines for your clients giving them a great level of service trot and and ginger on your team and phenomenal people you guys are handling this process so there are yeah we are a boutique firm we there are large law firms who practice many many many different areas of law anything from A to Z but that it’s more of a just like the personal injury attorneys now saying we do insurance defense right we our first party claims or whatever we are we do focus on a few limited areas but we focus on them and we do them very well and that’s why the level of expertise is there when it comes to these particular issues that are more detailed and the service as well so at our law firm we also handle corporate transactions or business matters such as people buying or selling businesses we also handle probate administration the reason why that sorry laughing is because like an agent called me the other day and I’m like what are you doing they’re like then do you know what an operating agreement is I need a draft one I said you’re drafting an operating agreement you know this is obviously someone and this is for residential commercial this is simply a residential property owned under a under under the name of a corporation that needs to be conveyed and XYZ title company is asked them to drop the operating that is a perfect example of corporate issues or business entity issues coming up in real estate transactions also like we talked about a second ago if somebody passes away they have to do a probate of the estate so we can determine in the courts who the rightful in beneficiaries are that will inherit the property and then be able to sell it to somebody else so those legal issues come home you’ll want to end up in probate you want to end up you because I’ve dealt with personal representatives and people like that after they’ve gone to probate and that process is very you you the idea of a will or can someone passing as you don’t want to end up in probate right but but a lot of times you do and the properties are subject to the probate process which is a legal process that has to be complete in order for a beneficiary or the person who’s inheriting it to be able to reconvey it we need to know from a court that that person is the now the legal rightful owner before they can sell it to somebody else similarly if it’s a corporation owned property or an LLC owned property like you just talked about a second ago there are documentation documents that we need to show to prove up who the rightful officers of the company are such as through an operating agreement to be able to sell the property so those issues they come they go hand in hand with real estate they come up all the time there’s a state set on properties there’s business entities and owned properties so being an attorney that is familiar with those areas in a jack-of-all-trades so to speak goes a long way in real estate transactions because when those issues come up if there’s not an attorney involved guess what now you need to go find one so we’re wasting sometimes there’s time and get money involved so in we’re so having the knowledge of those areas goes handing those really well blends really well to real estate transactions because it comes up all the time so we’re able to resolve those so but those are legal areas right and being an attorney means that we are unfamiliar with those areas my office is familiar and we can do those in real estate transactions but as we were talking about a second ago when we order our title searches and our liens day one of the contract to get the information immediately it’s been a tweets we mentioned it’s beneficial in a few different ways number one we can start resolving the issues immediately so there’s no delays in closing we are best suited and X and our ecuador expertise to actually know how to resolve the issues but it also notifies the buyer of any situation during the inspection period that could cost a lot more time so when those issues come up we’re able to best resolve them now our municipal lien searches however they will reveal reveal open or expired building permits or code violations and as even the water that’s a that’s yeah in and those types of issues as you mentioned I am very knowledgeable man we a week we can talk about them we know about them we know how to resolve things it’s very interesting because some things are an administrative closeout which we’ve talked about that like the the city’s permitting systems did an update three times oh we closed and some things the work is left and you know in pieces or it’s complete and it wasn’t inspected in the city at the end of the day wants to collect their fees and they want someone to take responsibility for the work and if there are such as a general contractor like myself and if any threshold inspections were missed like for example underlayment under a bathtub or shower pan then they’re like you got to get an engineer so it’s it’s the in the city’s mind it’s all like a hold harmless thing and they want to they want to be able to you know from having worked at the city they want they want to also be able to protect their continued residents and business owners and that’s why this afternoon I’m going to you know solve three reoccupied see things right where you know if you’re one of our viewers and you’ve heard this before from me but a reoccupied see inspection is where you know the city comes in to do an inspection to check for bed bath count square footage unpermitted work not open and expired permits but unpermitted work mm-hmm that didn’t show up so no definitely so these are things you could be you know proactive about and know we’re there applicable right so to your point real estate transactions are a dynamic thing there’s a lot of moving did I switch places a little bit no that is the work work we’re help were we’re familiar with each other’s balances so we can speak on it but you know so when we get to title issues or contractual issues that were so well suited to handle an even municipal issues such as permits we’re able to were knowledgeable about it sometimes there’s it’s just an administrative closeout we can call the building department and work in it but that only goes so far to a certain point when we get to more advanced permitting or code violation issues that require contractors to do work or contractors to explain to a city inspector what wasn’t done what needs to be done to a new level that’s where we can only take it so far that’s where we need to call and actually rely on other professionals such as yourself because now I’m not a contractor and when we get into more involved in detailed permitting issues I’m not a licensed contractor to be able to go repair the work and also what’s very interesting and in my experience a general contractor is looking to do work like they see oh he can replace kitchen and windows again there so being I kind of call myself like an owner’s rep is that fair to say like a consultant so someone who’s coming in to look you know get inspections passed and get you know the city or the county off their back definitely so that while we do the best we can to do everything in-house that we need to do to get a real estate transaction closed at a certain point there are issues that come up in the in the permitting and the code violation world that we have no choice but to rely on an outside professional who specializes in that area such as yourself I have and I have best practices meaning an agent calls me and they’re in Sunny Isles and they’re in a condo and there’s an open flooring permit no subflooring soundproofing inspection above the first floor and they said Ben how you gonna permit our kitchen and bathrooms and I’m like we can’t no no I’m sorry back that up they say how you’re gonna close this morning permit and I say well if I invite the city to close this open flooring permit and they see granite and marble and quartz and all this beautiful stuff that your owner did they’re gonna light me up front permitted work right so again sometimes I think the information that we give in that particular circumstance what I told the agent is find a buyer to assume and explain to them and credit them some money again I’m not looking to rebuild the castle right I’m looking like you were looking to get the deal to the closing line to give the seller the buyer and the agents the best advice now that situation that example that you just mentioned right there is where the information is known ahead of time and like you said find a buyer who it’s disclosed to in the front end they know about sellers disclosure right yeah exactly and the buyer is that seller is knowledgeable about their issue and they’re being upfront about it and they’re looking to find a buyer willing to accept it or willing to participate in a deal knowing upfront that issue and trust that with most other situations that happen where we find these issues after a buyer is already under con after inspection period even exactly then you’re in this really weird situation where you’ve had your right to inspect your seller the buyers already negotiated with the seller for deficiencies and then you’re finding more deficiencies and then that makes the transaction just throw it up in there you know exactly and anything can happen at that point and buyers can become locked into situations that they don’t want to be and that is going to be just a bad situation for everybody nobody wants that and buyers or Realtors or even attorneys nobody nobody wants that for their clients so that’s a way that we can definitely help avoid those situations and that’s an amazing best practice I mean that that’s something that you could do ya know definitely and it’s not only a way to protect buyers to get them not locked into situations they don’t want to be but even more importantly getting deals closed and assisting in real estate transactions to bring them to the closing table where others don’t and that’s why having smells like myself having professionals like you involved in situations it really goes such a long way and your technical experience in the areas of permitting and code violations I can personally say has gone a long way in transactions where otherwise I don’t believe it would have closed but for our involvement in your involvement know it’s interesting I have this little prop here from the village of Bassanio alright this is real horse fact this is a real artifact it’s not something that you used to do the drain line under your sink or someone tried to do it it’s not a pipe or anything like that what it is interestingly is someone who just jimmied a sink up and put all these pieces together like my three-year-old child right so again what’s very interesting is in this house it was a beautiful house in the village of Biscayne park I and again one thing that I want to stress about Kevin and his firm is that this was a celebrity’s house this was an all-star agent and it was handled professionally all throughout the way we did in a difficult city in the African city it’s a village right and it’s a log cabin no but so it’s a little area if you don’t know I think it’s just between North Miami Beach and-and-and North Miami with older housing stock so the city says hey before you well this wasn’t the result of a reoccupy inspection this was a result of an absentee owner on the west coast and a code enforcement violation for kitchen bathroom all interior remodeling without a permit so that’s kind of how we got we got brought into the the the the picture I’m not sure in this particular situation well if the lien search revealed the code enforcement violation oh and and and then became a lien on the property or the seller disclosed it I’m not sure really how that know it was the former the seller did not disclose it and so we had to discover it on our own but nonetheless we were able do you come up with it in the lien search yeah earlier you discovered it in your in your due diligence yes early on in the process as early as possible and then lo and behold that actually lended it well to get the deal closed because finding out about it early meant that took a lot of time to fix and it took extra time that was the deal so so it’s it’s very interesting they removed walls kitchen bathroom remodel they removed the stair railing so the stair railing was kind of left loose and buckled mm-hmm and so what was very interesting as the liens amassed to over it was like three or five hundred dollars a day for electrical and structural and what was very interesting about it is the cities don’t negotiate before you bring the property into compliance right so we ended up getting close to a two hundred thousand dollar lien reduced to $7,500 after the property was brought into compliance right and then we also had altered the contract so that the seller whose property it was was responsible for making that payment yeah and the buyer was not locked into that situation had that language not been in there outside the inspection period if what would have happened there is a chance that the buyer would have been in a very bad situation they’re inheriting locked into a contract where they’re inheriting somebody a headache from somebody else’s property that they’re buying that not only requires work to be fixed but extra money that they have to spend and let’s face it that’s not a happy customer they’re hard at that point hard meaning their deposit is solid they’re not happy fifty six fifty sixty thousand say it’s a you know a ten percent or 15 percent deposit right and that’s if it’s if the issues found and brought up all together you’d be amazed what I see happened the stuff that we see slipping through the cracks with other companies out there and other closing agents that doesn’t even well it’s you get brought it’s it’s very interesting because all day I’m presented to sellers and sellers are like hey I didn’t know there was open permits when I brought bought this GL home in Miramar or this house in Pine Crest and they go back they look at the municipal lien search they look at all their papers and there’s an it’s not on there right so so so again and what I and this isn’t really what I like to explain to the current property owner in the hardship situation but when your house is under contract and you didn’t find out about it early on the best thing well what you have to do is just deal with the problem at hand even if the contractors in business good luck getting them back to try and remedy these things and that brings me into you know one of my best practices and agents are doing throughout South Florida is they’re pulling lien searches really early before they even take the listing when they take the listing the property owner the agent they’re pulling the search to find out the deficiencies because sometimes the do are under contract for 30 45 days and the lien searches ordered first day with Plotkin mr. Kevin over here amazing sometimes if the contracts only 30 or 45 days the lien search get takes 10 business days to get back and then longer and then we’re left yes so and it’s not only finding the issues early but actually knowing how to resolve them yeah having it in your having it in your toolbox you know knowing and and again that’s what we that’s what we like to do again we like to help agents and sellers exactly and we’re looking to protect the parties in the real estate transaction whether it means we’re going to battle and correcting issues on technical things that we are experts at or we need to rely on other parties for it’s something that’s outside of our professional area of expertise that were licensed to do such as a further detailed code or permitting issue that we need to rely on so it’s it’s it’s really having the proper professionals and the relationships and the team around you that really goes a long way and some of these commercial lien searches I got the chance to review one of reliables from Tamarack and Miami Gardens I mean not only do they involve multiple jurisdictions but they’re 140 pages long showing when it was ordered the results of the ordering and sometimes for 22 tenants they make you pull 22 searches it could be thousands of dollars so it’s very important to have the information know what the information costs and what what the turnaround time is does when when when you get the searches right away you you you review them right of course not only over you’re viewing them ourselves but we’re also sending a copy to the buyer or seller and agent so that they have it for their records whether it’s clean or not in addition to that we’re updating all of the parties to let them know the results whether they’re good or bad so if it’s good the email to everybody will let them know great news we got our lien search back where we got our title search back and it’s clean nothing to worry about or we got the results back here’s the issue here’s what we’re doing to fix it and here’s how long we think it’s going to take or here’s the issue we don’t know how long it’s going to take but we’re working on it and we’ll get back to you as soon as we have more information let’s do our due diligence let’s get to the closing table whether it’s handing the proper handling the problem pre closing or post closing just making sure that all parties are represented and that they know what’s going on so they’re not left in the dark with any last-minute surprises what is the worst last question what is the worst I’m having so much fun guys so I don’t know it’s natural what is the what is the worst commercial industrial transaction that that you’ve seen like for example I’ve seen in West Park you know the guy goes to sell his warehouses and none and all of his tenants have a violation for no local business tax receipt or occupational license right and one thing triggers another you know what the city what’s the worst things that you’ve seen we have seen well when you’re dealing with a commercial property like that with tenants the process that is supposed to happen in these transaction if done properly is at the beginning of the transaction we’re gonna get copies of all the leases with those tenants between the current owner and the current tenants we all because we want to review them we want to see what the terms are we want to see how much the rent is we want a security transfer though they’re right we need to when you’re buying a property like that you’re buying those tenant relationships you’re taking over those leases so it’s very important that we inspect and we know everything there is to know about those relationships so the landlord or the seller the current property owner is going to give us copies of the leases with all the pertinent information on it and that seller is mostly likely going to tell you these are all the greatest tenants ever they all pay their rent on time we’ve never had any problem our return on investment is 18 percent you know and now we’re you know look we’re not in the business of trust you know the old saying trust but verify so we’re not in the business of sales the sales we’re not salespeople right so we need to get in that situation we need to get both sides of the story so the landlord or the owner is gonna give us copies of the leases but then we’re gonna get 10 an estoppel what we’re gonna get a questionnaire filled out by the tenants to see what they have to say to make sure you ever seen have you ever seen the lease and the landlord tenant estoppel on the tenant side conflict all the time and that’s the real point of it so the landlord will tell us you know they gave us a twenty five hundred all or security deposit only and the tenant will say well what are you talking about it gave you a five thousand dollar security deposit um or or we want to know if the tenant has any current claims against that landlord or current owner that we would want to know about because we’re buying that relationship so we also want to have the tenants not only fill out the questionnaire but we also require that they have it notarized so that we know that it’s the tenants filling it out and we’re legitimately getting both sides of the story now to your question what’s the worst thing we ever saw well in it we had a situation where a current owned property owner gave us leases with false information on it and the this wasn’t a deal we were handling at the beginning it actually came to us later because believe it or not a lot of the work that we do is cleaning up messes that were made elsewhere yeah right but what had happened in that situation was the landlord gave copies of the leases and then instead of having the tenants fill out the tenant estoppel forms the landlord faked the tenant stop horns filled them out themselves to match the false information the leases and then forge the signatures by the tenants in South Florida yes exactly this is the type of stuff we see going on here and that’s one of the reasons what we have a lot of just our I mean we have a lot of absentee owners we have a lot of property managers who are you know quasi they’re off off hand kind of and sometimes sometimes they don’t know like for example I was dealing with a commercial property and and and they had so much unpermitted or done in in their office condo and they built the kitchenette and in between when the property was under contract an inspection period that pipe that they dragged from there to there blew well in the second water and and I know we’re not able to shoot on you know things that things that on commercial lease is I see on the municipal side tenant did not get a local business tax receipt tenant tried to get one and they found unpermitted things and you do commercial you do s commercial leases to commercial leasing commercial city and again these are an incident and these aren’t like what I try and tell people is is all most of our situations they’re not copy and paste situations right every situation is different mm-hmm and you don’t want to end up in litigation correct you don’t want to end up losing money or losing a tenant or losing income so you’re here to prevent that or being told by a property owner the terms of a lease and then having a forged document on be a lieutenant did confirming that lot so we did that and in this particular situation was like the security transfer put on the hot like did it go did it did it closed right well thankfully once we were able to get involved it did but what was basically in a closing if there’s a security deposit that the owner has that security deposit or something does is there something to protect the buyer at that point well as a product from that situation seeing that type of action go on we now require that the tenant estoppel forms be notarized by the tenant yeah that way you avoid a situation where a property owner is signing is lying in the leases and then swearing by it by signing off on a fake tenant of share form and what happens in these transactions is during ten your in tens of thousands of this could amount to a lot of money a little bit of money a lot because the security deposits are transferred to the new owner so for example if a property owner tells us okay the security deposit was twenty-five hundred dollars then we that’s not verified that amount is not verified by the tenants well at closing the security deposit is transferred to the new so the new owner has it so that when the tenant goes to move out in case there’s damages they can tax that security deposit yeah it’s uh money or if there’s no damages they have to refund the money sure the tenant that’s moving out so for example if the landlord falsely says the security deposit was $2,500 that’s $2,500 that gets transferred to the new owner at closing so they have that money then when the tenant goes to move out then it says hey where’s my $5,000 security deposit right so that’s really the point of why and also some some of these it’s very interesting because when I talk to you some of some of the transit some of the transactions involve cash some of them are a mortgage there’s SBA loans involved there’s excuse me there’s a lot of moving parts definitely we do represent lenders and transactions as well you do see you will you will you represent the seller of course like so if so for example if it’s in like Palm Beach or not Miami Dade the buyer under the regional provision the Miami Dade the in Broward the buyer she was right in Miami Dade and Broward the buyer it’s not just with the resident sure with commercial it depends on what the contract says yeah customarily not by law but customarily in Dade and Broward County the buyer chooses the title company but even in that situation we can represent the seller and help them and a lot of times as a listing agent or as a seller it’s very beneficial because when the buyer chooses the title company that’s outside of your control they can choose anybody they want and there’s a lot of bad title companies out there yeah and they don’t know what they’re doing where you might you might get you know you might get a file transferred to you that there were there were a lot of problems with right and that’s when exactly cleaning up messes that were made elsewhere but to answer them you’re like botched man you’re like those those surgeons that the army are amazing that clean up after the rest of the plastic sure I don’t play a lawyer on TV but I am one in real life which is a good that’s awesome no definitely and you know in those situations even if it’s from the sellers side and the buyers choosing the title company it’s great to have us involved because there’s a lot of title companies out there that do not know what they’re doing and can mess up a deal and when we’re involved from the sellers side we’ve actually had situations where we’re holding that company’s hand and showing them what to do for the sake of the sellers side just to get the deal closed do you think it would be pretty interesting and I’ve done some education on my own but not side by side with an attorney like yourself do you think it would be interesting to do some educational classes I’m not just like like pitching but again I want agents to know that they they have the ability to get the due diligence done early on if they’re selling when they take the listing and then tools to resolution and best practices because you know that’s even though every case is different that’s how we learned definitely I myself / that’s a great question thank you I myself personally teach seminars on real estate contracts and closings at the real estate associations around South Florida that’s cool too about 60 Realtors a month so you have to really master a subject but how do you how do you go it’s so interesting you’ll go over like an as is or you know right for sale with two types of contracts I don’t I’m not well-versed in that but but how do you go like we’re just talking about in this interview one small section of that that kind yeah it’s it could go on for a long time but I know form simplicity and and and dot loop and I’m very aware of that what the real estate industry is using the agents have been given these these documents and you know to to to provide guidance for them that we’re done by attorneys like yourself right but again a contract is a legal document and do you ever find the like a situation where the you were handed over a file and they used the form simplicity or copy and pasted documents and then you saw that it was necessary to have another one depending on your buyers and sellers interests yeah all the time there’s you know certain addendums that need to be used in certain situations and it’s knowing the availability of the forms out there to use or having to create your own custom form tailored to the situation yeah if there’s not a pre-printed no because I mean I mean and you know you know every way to get to the closing table whether it’s doing a leaseback I mean all these just through your experience all these different solutions that would that would assist buyer and seller based off their needs for example seller financing so there’s situations where a lot the sellers holding the mortgage right exactly the seller actually holds them how how do they go to the property they go to the property and say give me my payment well well there you go so how do we enforce that how do we we have to prepare a mortgage and a promissory note yeah that’s preventing Kevin coming over there and mortgage you know i we our muscle is through the court system we allow the sheriff with our minds the sheriff to handle that aspect of it but for like for example to your point if you get in a situation where a buyer can’t get a loan or a buyer can get a loan but it’s not enough and they need a extra money and the seller is willing to actually contribute that money but they want to make sure that they get paid back right so how do they do that we need to draft a mortgage that secures the property as collateral sure that if they don’t get paid they can foreclose on the house and recoup their money that they lent to the borrower but you need an attorney to be able to do that and get creative and come up with the terms and be able to draft the documents that are enforceable to allow that to happen in a transaction to get it to be able to close that’s a great example there Oh one solution we can come up with in getting deals closed and and again I mean I I just love these talking about the best practices and and what agents can do out out there and how they can recommend you to just get the deal done yeah they can definitely rely on us that gives us the best it gives an agent the best chance of the deal closing let’s face it in real estate I love our jobs because sometimes again were brought with these hardship situations and we’re able to develop solutions for all parties and I’m kind of in a job I’m not saying that my job is more difficult than yours or vice versa but I’m in a juggling act sometimes holding the the buyer the seller the agents the city that all of those things and then timeframes and trying to get stuff on track there’s a lot fun but again it’s again what I’ve seen in the industry is copy and paste and this is not copy and paste boss construction Plotkin law firm Express title reliable lien search not copy and paste incur estimize solutions to get things done creative you know are in our weird South Florida environment using expertise that is you and creativity yeah it is you I don’t want to draft an operating agreement I don’t want to go on legal docs and and drop down and Adam I don’t want to go explaining to an inspector why a generator was why this happened exactly yeah what is this from so we have to work hand-in-hand with professionals that are proper for the situation and that’s really what we bring to the table is a lot of expertise and a lot of great relationships with experts like yourself and vice versa and you know we should collaborate more I’m speaking well my education I had an awesome time I think you had an awesome time I couldn’t have had a better time they all so much thank you so much and on the information bottom below you will be able to like Express title you’ll be able to ask Kevin Plotkin questions you’ll be able to talk to me and engage we normally don’t again this interview went 30 minutes we try and break this up and provide reliable content that’s relevant for you guys so again we will continue posting reliable information to help you get to that closing table definitely that’s good I couldn’t have said it better my life thank you so – thank you look forward right
