Pursuant to Supplemental Directive 13-04 of this month, the Making Home Affordable Program, including HAFA (short sales) and HAMP (mortgage mods), is extended through the end of 2015.

Additionally, Supplemental Directive 13-04 simplifies the income documentation requirements under HAMP, by modifications to the rules concerning Form 4506-T; Benefit Income; Verification of Monthly Gross Expenses; Wage or Salary Income; Self Employment Income; Rental Income; and Alimony, Separation Maintenance and Child Support.

To illustrate, now the requirement that a servicer must verify monthly gross expenses is removed and a servicer may just rely on a borrowers stated expenses. With respect to the other categories, the Supplemental Directive enables the servicer to "verify such income in accordance with the [...] documentation the servicer relies on when modifying loans held in its own portfolio..."

The extension is certainly welcomed as the foreclosure crisis is far from over. Also, these new rules are smart as they simplify an unnecessarily complex process, which has resulted in both lenders and borrowers being frozen in time when seeking to follow the rules. Instead, its expected that more decisions will be made whether to modify a loan based upon these changes.

HUD just issued its study of incidence and forms of discrimination experienced by black, Hispanic, and Asian renters and homebuyers.

The study finds that "minority homeseekers are told about and shown fewer homes and apartments than whites", as a result of more than 8,000 tests conducted in 28 metropolitan areas.

Clearly discrimination still exists in housing. However, the study takes pains to explain that differing circumstances of classes of people in housing does not equal discrimination. Instead, the discrimination is only present when it causes the resulting disability in housing.

Real estate agents should read the Executive Summary, understand discrimination and be mindful to weed out such practices as we always strive to bring professionalism to our field.

We are often questioned about our advice at our Mortgage Mania class that its okay to cancel old credit cards. People say - Lieb you are wrong.

Well here is a Business Insider article by John Ulzheimer of SmartCredit.com that seems to agree with us. Have a read and decide for yourselves.

On November 8, 2012, we wrote a blog called Airbnb is Brilliant - NYC Housing. Therein, we said that "[a]   major barrier to their success are local laws that prohibit short term rentals in many municipalities across the Country". We also referenced NYC's rental law and said that maybe Airbnb's helping with housing in the wake of the hurricane would generate enough good will to overturn the City's minimum rental law.

It didn't.

On 5/9/13, a NYC resident was found liable for a $2,400 Civil Penalty for violating AC 28-118.3.2 as a result of renting his condominium unit (actually the rental at issue was offered by the tenant of the unit, but that is irrelevant for this discussion) to two Russian women from the 9th to the 14th of September in 2012.

NYC's minimum rental period law is designed to prevent transient guests, which is a topic that have discussed previously on quite a few occasions such as in February of 2010 and May of 2012. The thrust of the topic is that there are safety issues in permitting unregulated hotels to exist for consumers and that there are further issues for other unit owners in allowing unscreened strangers to have access in and out of their condominium and cooperative buildings. There are also many arguments that transient guests in neighborhoods greatly reduce property values.

Its important to note that the decision distinguished the violated act from simply having "house guests or lawful boarders, roomers or lodgers" who stay for less than 30 days. The decision sets forth that house guests cannot be strangers who pay for occupancy and with respect to the other terms it looks to the definition of a common household in the Code as "A common household is deemed to exist if every member of the family has access to all parts of the dwelling unit. Lack of access to all parts of the dwelling unit establishes a rebuttable presumption that no common household exists".

So, NYC residents stop using Airbnb, it advertises your illegal rentals and gives the government great evidence if they wish to prosecute. To read the decision for yourselves, click here.

In early May, a newspaper article was passed around our office which churned up more than a few laughs from the staff. New York City based Rapid Realty offers its Real Estate Agents a 15% raise in their commission split if they get a tattoo of the broker's logo. Check out the article here. Turns out, their decision to get a tattoo of Rapid Realty's logo could result in a potential License Law violation.

Lieb at Law and Lieb School have gotten their hands on the new Real Estate License Law Advertising Regulations which will take effect on January 2, 2014. Anyone with a tattoo of their broker's logo may want to pay particular attention to sections (a)(1) and (c)(1) of these new regulations.

Section (a)(1) defines an advertisement as "promotion and solicitation related to licensed real estate activity, including but not limited to, advertising via mail, telephone, website, e-mail, electronic bulletin boards, business cards, signs, billboards, and flyers."

Section (c)(1) states that any advertisement "shall indicate that the advertiser is a real estate broker or provide the name of the real estate broker or real estate brokerage and either: (i) the full address of the real estate broker or real estate brokerage or, (ii) the telephone number of the real estate broker or brokerage."

So, agents with a tattoo of your broker's logo - that tattoo just might make you a walking advertisement! Make sure your tattoo is in compliance with your license law. You have until January 2, 2014 to schedule another session at your local tattoo parlor to add your broker's name and address or telephone number to go alongside your broker's logo!

The sign off line of that May 2nd article could end up being more applicable than the author probably imagined.

"Perhaps getting permanently branded with a company logo gives a whole new meaning to the term 'walking billboard.'"

REAL LIFE

Tomorrow & Saturday 5/24 & 5/25 at 5:30pm WPPB Peconic Public Broadcasting 88.3- Check out the season launch of Real Life hosted by John Christopher from Brown Harris Stevens. John will be interviewing Andrew Lieb concerning a multitude of issues facing Hamptonites in the real estate market from commercial valuation to simply the new regulations requiring a bank to verify ability to repay a loan.

We have some last minute cancellations for the free 3 credit CE course Divorce Deals in Riverhead tomorrow on 5/22/13. We also have new seats available in the course Property Management 101: A Good Piece of Dirt in Hauppauge on 6/6/13.

Visit www.liebschool.com to learn more about our free continuing education courses for licensed Real Estate Salespersons and Brokers in New York.

While teaching agency disclosure, I was recently questioned about the duty of a seller's agent to disclose to prospective purchaser customers whether a sex offender lived in the subject Condominium.

The agent made inquiry pursuant to Real Property Law 443(4)(a) where the statute requires a seller's agent to "disclose all facts known to the agent materially affecting the value or desirability of property, except as otherwise provided by law."

The agent's point was that a sex offender's presence would lower the "desirability of property", if not the "value" of the Condominium unit. It was a good point that the agent made and it stumped me. So I said that I would check some law and let everyone know the answer on this blog.

Here goes - The closest case on point is Glazer v. LoPreste. Therein, a home purchaser sued the seller and real estate agents stating that the seller and agents fraudulently misrepresented that the home was a good place to raise children and concealed the existence of sex offenders in the neighborhood. The Appellate Division (2nd highest Court in the State) held (decided) that there was no rightful claim under these circumstances and dismissed the case.

Glazer is differentiated from the facts presented in that Glazer involved allegations of an affirmative misrepresentation whereas the facts presented only involved a failure of a duty to disclose. However, Glazer involved a sex offender in the neighborhood whereas the question presented involved one living within the same Condominium, which appears to be a heightened situation. Nonetheless, it seems safe for a real estate agent not to disclose the existence of a sex offender in this facts presented because, as the Court stated in Glazer, "the information was not 'peculiarly within the knowledge of the seller or unlikely to be discovered by a prudent purchaser exercising due care with respect to the subject transaction'".

Stated otherwise, the Glazer decision seems to limit the obligations for a real estate agent to disclose to facts that are not generally known nor easily discovered through due care. Meaning, why didn't the purchaser check the sex offender registry for himself?

So, agents, while there is no license law opinion directly on point, it appears that Glazer, while not addressing license law compliance and section 443(4)(a) expressly, would make nondisclosure permissible.

We are very happy to announce that Andrew Lieb, Esq. received an Award of Recognition from The Suffolk County Bar Association for Chairing the Real Property Committee of the Bar Association.