A landowner can sue a city for announcing that it was going to take some property by eminent domain, and then doing nothing else for a long time. That’s the result of two recent decisions by the highest courts in Nevada and Missouri. In the Nevada case, the city of North Las Vegas announced that it was going to condemn an acre of a business’s property for a flood control project. However, the city did nothing

The Federal Reserve Board has issued a number of new rules for home mortgages that are designed to protect consumers. The rules apply to “subprime” mortgages and to some “Alt-A” mortgages (which are given to buyers whose credit is less than ideal but is better than subprime). The rules include: Lenders cannot offer a mortgage unless they first verify the borrower’s income.

If you take out a second mortgage or a home equity line of credit, be aware that it could affect your estate plan. The reason: Many people plan to leave their house to one child, and the rest of their property to their other children (or other heirs). But their will doesn’t say specifically whether the child who inherits the house will receive it subject to any debts, or whether the debts must be paid off

Should you refinance now? Mortgages are often divided into two types, “conforming” and “jumbo.” For some time, a “conforming” mortgage has been any loan up to $417,000, and a “jumbo” mortgage has been any loan over that amount. The reason is that $417,000 was the largest loan that could be repurchased by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two quasi-governmental mortgage-buying agencies. Because lenders could not re-sell a loan over $417,000 to these agencies, they often

The typical homebuyer today is 39 years old, has a household income of $74,000, searches for eight weeks, sees 10 homes, and makes a down payment of 9%, according to research conducted by Bankrate.com. Married couples constitute 62% of homebuyers, with single women accounting for 20%, single men 9% and unmarried couples 7%. (The remaining 2% of buyers were classified as “other.”) Perhaps surprisingly, only 40% of homebuyers have children under 18 living at home. Some

Some people decide to do some “homemade” estate planning and put their house in a child’s name. They figure this will avoid probate and get the house out of their estate for tax purposes. This might be a good idea in some cases. But remember, if you give your house to your child now, any appreciation in the value of the house between now and the time it’s eventually sold will be a capital gain for

The down market in real estate has created a boomlet in two obscure types of property sales: the “short sale” and the “house swap.” A short sale is an alternative to foreclosure. If a property owner is unable to make mortgage payments, but the lender doesn’t want to go through the legal hassle of foreclosure, the owner and the lender may agree to a short sale. The property is sold, and if the sale price is