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WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF SELF-BOOKED AND PAID-FOR, ONLINE AUDIO/VIDEO LEGAL CONSULTS.  LET POTENTIAL NEW CLIENTS SELF-BOOK AUDIO/VIDEO CONSULTATIONS ON YOUR WEBSITE FOR A FEE FROM ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD. My name is Mark Roy.  I am a real estate lawyer who has been in private practice for 33 years in Kansas City, Missouri. I have always been very empathetic to the challenges everyday people face when needing affordable, competent, timely legal advice. My experience is that many people do not take the time to obtain affordable, competent, timely legal advice because it is perceived that it will cost too much or take too much time to obtain. The idea is they just want to ask a few questions to find out what the law is on a particular matter or what they should be thinking about or be prepared for, and not necessarily to hire a lawyer at that moment.  This keeps many people from getting simple questions answered and being able to make constructive pro-active decisions. Answering “simple questions” is worth being compensated for. The hard work was done learning the answers to become a Lawyer. Lawyers do not want to work for free, and this keeps many lawyers from potentially great new clients simply because “there is no money it”.  The thought is “I will turn that over to the staff, or to the phone recorder, and call the ones back that sound promising or worth pursuing”.  Meanwhile, by the time you return the message, he has already gotten his question answered and “found a lawyer”. The traditional way of thinking The traditional way of thinking when it comes to new clients is that the lawyer, or someone from the lawyer’s staff, needs to be prepared to talk to new clients on the telephone to get basic information, qualify the potential new client, provide answers to basic questions, all with the expectation that the new client will somehow be induced into coming into the office for a paid appointment or a free consultation that may lead to a paid new client. After many years of answering my phone every day to talk to new potential clients and beating my head against the wall when I realized how much free time I was giving away, I reached out to my web developer with the following question: How can I eliminate all of the wasted time I spend on the telephone each day giving away free legal advice without taking on additional staff and overhead and without answering my phone, while also being able to work from home or remotely?  My web developer suggested taking my phone numbers off my website.  I did not feel comfortable doing that so I changed the message on my telephone to say reach out on our contact us button on our homepage (for general e-mail inquiries that I respond to but do not waste time on – my general response is to BOOK an online consultation) or self BOOK an online AUDIO/VIDEO consultation on my homepage. My web developer set it up and now I receive bookings every day that go on my calendar that I get automatic notifications of. I didn’t have to hire a staff to qualify new clients or put dates on my calendar. The information is provided when the appointment is booked, therefore, I do not have the overhead of having a staff person qualifying new clients or putting dates on my calendar.  The fee is paid and deposited automatically in advance of the appointment. Several automatic notifications are sent including a description and restrictive disclaimer of the service being delivered (1 consultation). I have found that those who BOOK CONSULTS are generally very surprised by what they didn’t know and what they need to know to overcome whatever obstacle or challenge they are facing. Typically, those who BOOK CONSULTS have very specific questions and their next actions are dependent on knowing what to do next. Automatic booking notifications that sync with my Google Calendar Now I get automatic notifications of bookings that go on my Google calendar, all I have to do is make the phone call and talk with the client.  I like to do Video consultations but most of the consultations are by audio only. These are 1/2 hours consultations that do not include any document review or 1-hour consultations that do include document review. What is nice is the fees are earned when the consultation is concluded.  The other exciting thing is I can control my calendar so I pick when consultations are allowed to be booked and that is dynamic so that my available calendar for self-booked and paid Audio/Video bookings can be changed at any time so that appointments can be booked only during predetermined times and days that I set. But the biggest added value is the clients who self-book online for consultations are motivated for answers and many become VERY GOOD CLIENTS. Monetize your time with 30-minute – 1hr video consults. So a 1/2 hour or 1-hour self-booked Audio/Video consult turns into much better long-term new client opportunities.  For some reason, the new clients that are willing to commit money and put some skin in the game for an initial consultation, are the same new clients that are motivated to “act”  and “pay” and not just expect to get free legal advice. People who plan ahead make great clients. That has been the most surprising part of this to me is the quality of new clients generated for the matters called on and the value of getting paid as you consult a client on all their options and what direction to go.  I do not need to sell myself other than to provide the benefit of my experience and expertise for a short period of time for a predetermined fee by self-booked and paid Audio/Video Consultation.  I am not committing myself to long-term representation of the client, and all of the automatic notifications the potential new client receives make it clear … Read more

Thousands of Midwest home sellers are eligible to join a lawsuit challenging real estate fees KCUR | By Dan Margolies Published April 25, 2022, at 4:17 PM CDT   A federal judge certified the case as a class action, meaning thousands of home sellers in the Midwest may be eligible to recover damages if the plaintiffs prevail. A federal lawsuit in Kansas City challenging rules requiring home sellers to pay commissions to brokers representing home buyers has been certified as a class action, meaning thousands of home sellers in the Midwest may be eligible to recover damages if the plaintiffs prevail. U.S. District Judge Stephen Bough on Friday ruled that the lawsuit, which was originally filed in 2019 on behalf of Missouri home sellers who had listed their homes on the Multiple Listing Services system (MLS), met the criteria for a class action, including numerosity and common questions of law or fact. The Kansas City case, along with a nearly identical federal lawsuit in Chicago, challenges uncompetitive rules that consumer advocates have long criticized for artificially inflating real estate commissions. The suit names the National Association of Realtors (NAR) and the nation’s four largest national real estate broker franchisors: Realogy Holdings Corp.; HomeServices of America, Inc.; RE/MAX Holdings, Inc.; and Keller Williams Realty, Inc. The Defendants own and operate some of the largest real estate brokerages in the country. HomeServices of America, an affiliate of Berkshire Hathaway, owns and operates ReeceNichols Real Estate and Prudential Real Estate, among others. Realogy Holdings owns and operates Century 21 and Coldwell Banker, among others. The plaintiffs allege the real estate brokerages and NAR have conspired to require home sellers to pay brokers representing home buyers inflated amounts, in violation of federal antitrust law, Missouri antitrust law, and the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act. “The cornerstone of Defendants’ conspiracy is NAR’s adoption and implementation of a rule that requires all brokers to make a blanket, non-negotiable offer of buyer broker compensation …when listing a property on a Multiple Listing Service …,” the lawsuit states. As a condition of listing their homes on an MLS, a centralized database listing homes for sale, sellers are required to agree that the listing agent will split the commission with the agent representing the buyer. Absent that requirement, the plaintiffs claim, “seller brokers would set a commission to pay themselves alone and would likely begin to engage in more vigorous competition with one another to lower their rates and/or provide additional services to justify their newly transparent rates.” A federal judge in Chicago has allowed a similar class-action lawsuit to proceed, ruling that the home sellers had supported their allegations of a “pricing system in which the seller is essentially locked into a buyer-broker commission rate upfront that neither the buyer nor the seller has the incentive or ability to negotiate.” NAR argues that the MLS system is efficient and beneficial to consumers. It says that it allows many first-time, low-income buyers to purchase a home they couldn’t otherwise afford because they don’t have to pay brokers directly. In response to a request for comment, NAR emailed a statement to KCUR saying it was disappointed with Bough’s ruling, which it said it plans to appeal. “The pro-competitive, pro-consumer local broker marketplaces serve the best interests of buyers and sellers,” NAR said. “Local broker marketplaces ensure equity, transparency, and market-driven pricing options for the benefit of home buyers and sellers. These marketplaces reduce transaction costs by ensuring, among other things, that a buyer broker and their client understand how much the listing broker will pay the buyer broker for procuring a buyer for the listed property. “Local broker marketplaces also level the playing field among brokerages, allowing small brokerages to compete with large ones, and provide for unprecedented competition among brokers, including different service and pricing models.” NAR, which is headquartered in Chicago, represents more than 1.3 million real estate agents belonging to some 1,200 local associations and boards in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories. Not long after the lawsuits in Kansas City and Chicago were filed, the U.S. Justice Department filed a civil suit against NAR alleging it had established and enforced illegal restraints on how real estate agents compete. The department later withdrew from a proposed settlement of the case, saying it was too narrow in focus and didn’t sufficiently protect its ability to pursue future claims against NAR. “Real estate is central to the American economy and consumers pay billions of dollars in real estate commissions every year,” Acting Assistant Attorney General Richard Powers said in a statement about the department’s withdrawal from the settlement. “We cannot be bound by a settlement that prevents our ability to protect competition in a market that profoundly affects Americans’ financial well-being.” NAR has petitioned to block the Justice Department’s withdrawal from the settlement, which was reached during former President Donald Trump’s administration. The petition is pending. In granting the plaintiffs’ request for class certification, Bough certified three separate classes, including one consisting of all home sellers since April 29, 2015, who used a listing broker affiliated with the defendants and who paid a commission to the buyer’s broker when they sold their homes. The plaintiffs estimate the classes include “hundreds of thousands of class members geographically dispersed throughout the state of Missouri and portions of Kansas and Illinois.” AFFIDAVIT OF SURVIVORSHIP affidavit of title BUYERS commercial real estate COMMON LAW MARRIAGE COVID AND EVICITION DEATH AND REAL ESTATE Deed estate planning estate planning real estate trends FSBO future of commercial real estate Future of real estate home buying Home seller home selling inheritance KC real estate LANDLORD Landlords land use midwest real estate PROBATE Property Management real estate closing real estate contracts real estate deeds Real estate deed work real estate ethics real estate finance Real estate financing real estate investing real estate lawyer real estate management real estate market real estate markets real estate planning real estate transactions real estate trends seller financing SELLERS SURVIVORSHIP AFFIDAVIT TENANTS … Read more

If you’re the buyer in a real estate transaction, you’ll receive a copy of the title commitment before closing and have several days to review it. Here’s why that document is so important and what it means to your property. What is a Title Commitment? A title commitment is a document that iterates the details surrounding the property. It lists the various requirements, exclusions, and exceptions behind issuing title insurance on the property. It’s also a promise to issue title insurance as long as all stipulations in Section B are met. Without a title commitment, the buyer knows little about the property’s possible peculiarities such as a third-party ruling body like a condo association or any right-of-way existing on the property. Understand a Title Commitment The title commitment is divided into several sections. Depending on the state in which the property is located, the title commitment could vary slightly but they always contain the following parts. Schedule A Schedule A contains the commitment date; the policies to be issued, the amounts, and proposed insured; the interest in the land and the owner; and the description of the property. Schedule B Schedule B contains the requirements, exceptions, and exclusions. Schedule B is the most important part of the title commitment. Buyers should pay close attention to it. Requirements: this section lists the things that must be completed/adhered to in order for title insurance to be issued. If one of the requirements cannot be met, this will affect escrow, so the buyer should inform the escrow officer immediately. Requirements can include things like: Tax payments Recording the new deed Recording loan documents Release of liens Proof of identity Exceptions: this section lists what is not covered under title insurance. You’ll usually find generic wording contained in this section about mineral rights as well. In order for a buyer to fully understand the coverage of the title insurance on the property, the exceptions section should be read carefully. If any of the exceptions are unacceptable to the buyer, it might be possible for the title company to remove them, insure over it (with the use of an endorsement), or discard it with a release or affidavit. Contact the escrow officer or an attorney if there’s anything that strikes you as unusual in this section. It’s better for you to understand the stipulations and gain clarification now than find out later you left yourself exposed by not fully reviewing the document. Exclusions: this section discloses things that the title company will not cover. Common exclusions include: Governmental regulations relating to the use of the property Rights of eminent domain Claims arising from bankruptcy A title commitment is one of the most important documents in closing because it details what is covered and not covered in the title insurance policy. Without one it’s impossible to understand the stipulations and exclusions of the title insurance. You may be leaving yourself open to future legal challenges if you don’t examine it carefully. You have a choice when it comes to title agencies. Selecting a title company that helps you understand the process and works with you is wise. HTTPS://KCREALESTATELAWYER.COM AFFIDAVIT OF SURVIVORSHIP affidavit of title BUYERS commercial real estate COMMON LAW MARRIAGE COVID AND EVICITION DEATH AND REAL ESTATE Deed estate planning estate planning real estate trends FSBO future of commercial real estate Future of real estate home buying Home seller home selling inheritance KC real estate LANDLORD Landlords land use midwest real estate PROBATE Property Management real estate closing real estate contracts real estate deeds Real estate deed work real estate ethics real estate finance Real estate financing real estate investing real estate lawyer real estate management real estate market real estate markets real estate planning real estate transactions real estate trends seller financing SELLERS SURVIVORSHIP AFFIDAVIT TENANTS IN COMMON TRANSFER ON DEATH DEED wholesale real estate LAWYERS, STOP GIVING AWAY YOUR TIME FOR FREE. AUDIO/VIDEO BOOKING FOR LEGAL SERVICES ON YOUR WEBSITE. MONETIZE YOUR TIME AND GET BETTER NEW CLIENTS FROM ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD. 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