Don’t Take Our Word for it, Check Your Sources (CFFL 377)

Don't Take Our Word for it, Check Your Sources Jack Butala: Don't Take Our Word for it, Check Your Sources. Leave us your feedback for this podcast on iTunes and get the free ebook at landacademy.com, you don't even have to read it. Thanks for listening. Jill:                            Hi. Jack:                         Welcome to our show today, this Tuesday. IN this episode, Jill and I talk about: Hey, don't take our word for it, check it out, do the research. Check your resources, check our ... Just do some research, and check it out on everything we say. But hey, before we really get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on TheLandAcadamey.com online community. It has several names, which we'll cover in a second, and it's always free though. Jill:                            Kierriah asked, "What do I do when a perspective buyer tells me there may be a POA, kind of like an HOA, a home owner's ... Jack:                         Property Owner's Association. Jill:                            Yep. Jack:                         That's a right way to say it, we always say HOA. But when we say, sorry go ahead. Jill:                            That's okay. No that wasn't interrupting at all. Jack:                         Go ahead, sorry. Jill:                            All good. "What do I do when a perspective buyer tells me there may be a POA, property owner's association fee, for the neighborhood? I haven't received anything in the way of a bill since receiving the deed." Not surprising, may take a little while. "So I have no idea if my property has a POA fee. This buyer wants to own her finance, so I may need to pay this fee for the next 3 years. Should I try to find out since he's making payments? Do I just wait to see if a bill comes from the POA? Jack:                         These are all great questions and I'm so glad this came up. The first thing you want to do when buying a piece of property, as part of the due diligence, whether or not to actually pull the trigger, google the subdivision name, if it's in a subdivision, if it's not then you're okay. If there is an association, then you want to call the person who runs it, and you want to ask them all about what's going on there. Jill:                            Did you say this before you buy? Jack:                         Yeah. Jill:                            Okay, good, because you don't want to buy it and then find out later on they owed $1000. Jack:                         Well the chain of events is this: you sent a ton of offers out, a bunch of them come back signed, or the seller calls you, whatever. And then you start to review the property. If you're new to this show, or new to the whole concept. Everybody else does it backwards and wrong. We do it correct. Jill:                            Exactly. Cause everybody wastes hours and days and weeks on properties they're not gonna buy. Jack:                         You only ever do due diligence on a property that the deal's already ... the aconomics of the transaction is done. Jill:                            Right. Jack:                         In all, in one of those things on the list to check it out is a POA. Here's a truth about POAs and HOAs. They have no idea when properties change hands, okay? They are very unorganized in general. I still get a bill every year from an HOA in Texas. We haven't owned property in there in probably 8 years. So they don't have a direct connection to what's the recorder's office; they aren't notified efficiently and unless they ... Some of the bigger ones go there every day and they see if anything's transferred, or they go to the website, or they're in the same building. What was the question? Jill:                            It's to the POA and the HOA's advantage to know who the current seller is because they want to make sure that person's getting a bill and paying them,