OfflineMy partner and I had an Option to Purchase contract with full disclosures and rights to assign.
After placing and ad on local investor sites we were hit with a complaint by a Florida RE broker through the Department of Business Professional Regulation for practicing without a license.
The investigator says if we had recorded the contract with the Clerk of the Court we would have legal rights to resale the property. He went on to say that attorneys do not know this.
I have looked and even asked the investigator and have not seen nor been sent the Statute or rule backing the charge.
Does anyone have any info on this?
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Rodney-
The underlying reasoning probably is the fact that you do not have any titlable interest in the property thereby negating your right to sell without a real estate agent. However, once you record your L/O, you have titlable interest.
This type of enforcement is commonplace (it became commonplace in the late 80s)in this type of economic environment. When real estate agents commissions go down, they complain to the Board about investors which in turn makes an effort to split hairs in the way they read and enforce the law. It is more of an effort to protect their own, but they have the ability to do it.
When you record the L/O, you will have to pay the fees associated with the recording and they assume you will not do that. (In Florida, they will treat your L/O as a sale and the fees get quite large quickly).
Do not confuse titlable interest with equitible interest as you automatically have gain the latter but you need to look at the former.
Obviously, not being a lawyer, I cannot tell you what to do in this situation. However, I can tell you what we have done. We have ceased operations (aquiring homes through L/O) in FL until that time we have a bonafide solution (which we feel is close at hand) to the problem, as we feel FL will start to do a "full court press". The FL Treasury is in serious trouble because their revenues have diminished greatly. They do not an income tax and depend on fees, the sales tax and entertainment tax for their revenue. Since they can't control the last two, they can strongly enforce the first one and increase their revenue. Of course, this is just my opinion.
Always Looking to Acquire Houses | Always Looking to Amaze Investors
Hi Bill,
Thanks for the reply. You are the first in a line of forums I have posted this in, including Attorney forums, that has tried to help me make sense of it.
I notice in your answer you refer to our process as a L/O. Actually we were using an Option to Purchase contract, no lease. The investigator said to get around the problem was to file the option to purchase contract with the Clerk of the Court, a ten dollar fee. However this would allow all to know what price I am paying. By the way the seller knew what we were doing and was ok with it because the Realtors had the property on MLS for more than a year and no showings.
The investigator was more interested that I advertised the property after my original buyer fell out. He told me to get around that I needed to create a company to advertise the property and the number advertised could not come back directly to me.
Now I mention all this because with all this information he could not tell me the Statute or Rule that said I need to file a contract with the Clerk. I am trying to find an attorney that is willing to help in this. I suppose if I am charged with the so called crime(a third degree felony ) the court will appoint me one.
Again thanks,
Rodney