Legal
guidebook for homeowners is disappointing
By Robert J. Bruss
Tribune Media Services
Knowing the author's superb reputation as a writer
of many real estate books, I expected "The Homeowner's Legal Bible"
by Martin M. Shenkman to be an easy-to-understand legal guidebook
for homeowners. Instead, I discovered a challenging book that is
sometimes extremely simplistic and at other times filled with legal
mumbo-jumbo.
As a fellow attorney, I understand the handicap
Shenkman had in attempting to write a book for a national audience
because laws and customs vary widely by state. The author did an
admirable job of generalizing to accomplish a difficult task.
Unfortunately, by writing for homeowners in simple
terms, and also supplying dozens of legal forms that only a real
estate lawyer can fully appreciate and comprehend, the book is limited
in usefulness.
The publisher made virtually no attempt to present
this book in an easy-to-read format. Instead, it was typeset in
a boring format with little variation to break up the often-dull
legal style. More practical examples, presented with attractive
graphics, would have added to the book's readability.
Copies of legal documents are presented at the
end of each chapter. For example, in the chapter about renting your
home to tenants, there is a sample lease form. It obviously cannot
be used without substantial rewriting because of all the notes scattered
throughout.
And many of the notes are hard or impossible to
understand, such as, "Is there anything important that you as the
homeowner want to have the tenant attest to in the lease?" What
does that mean?
Especially enjoyable is the chapter about selling
your home and using a real estate broker. Shenkman does an excellent
job of explaining how to give listing and selling brokers commission
incentives to get the home sold quickly. He includes good advice,
such as, "If the agent wants a longer listing, the agent should
be willing to give you the right to cancel if the agent isn't actively
selling your house." That's a diplomatic way of saying if a listing
agent wants a long listing, it should include an unconditional cancellation
clause.
Some of the book's information is downright wrong.
To illustrate, in the section about the tax aspects of principal
residence sales and the $250,000/$500,000 tax exemption, the author
says: "To qualify for the home-sale exclusion, the house you sell
must be used as your principal residence. The potential risk with
renting your old house before the sale is that, if improperly handled,
it could change its character from being a principal residence to
being a rental property. The IRS might claim that you abandoned
the house as your principal residence if you rented it for an extended
period."
That's downright incorrect. I'm shocked that a
brilliant lawyer such as Shenkman would write that. He surely knows
Internal Revenue Code 121 only requires an "aggregate" two out of
the last five years ownership and occupancy to qualify for the exemption.
That means a home seller qualifies for the tax exemption even if
the home was rented for up to three years before its sale, as long
as it was owner-occupied for the prior two years.
Chapter topics include: Buying Your Home; Financing
Your Home; Owning Your Home; Protecting Your Home; Leasing Your
Home; Selling Your Home; and Giving/Bequeathing Your Home.
This unusual book satisfies neither homeowners
nor their lawyers. It just scratches the surface of the topics raised.
The idea was great, but the implementation was lacking. Yes, I learned
from it. But this book is not up to the standards of the author's
previous real estate books. On my scale of one to 10, it rates a
disappointing seven.
The Homeowners Legal Bible, By Martin M. Shenkman,
Esq. (John Wiley and Sons, New York, 2002), $19.95, 286 pages. Available
in stock or by special order at better bookstores, public libraries
and www.amazon.com.
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