As most home buyers and sellers know, the FHA helps buyers purchase homes.  They do this by “insuring” loans on behalf of buyers who might not be able to otherwise afford a conventional loan.  As a result, FHA buyers can still get financing with lower credit scores and lower down-payments than a conventional buyer.  However, not all real estate properties […]

Our own Ed Reda penned a short piece on the topic of impairment and the issues it creates in estate planning. As our population ages, more and more attorneys are dealing with clients with cognitive impairment.  What is cognitive impairment?  One clinical definition is “A change in intellectual capacity characterized by a loss in both memory and executive functioning.” (Dr. […]

The Cook County Sheriff has added a “civil process lookup” function to its website.  Plaintiffs can now check on the status of service of process on their lawsuits without having to call or go to the Sheriff’s office.  Bravo to Sheriff Dart for embracing technology and getting some efficiency into the process.

The New Year is a crazy time for Chicago landlords.  The first thing they need to do is to figure out the new security deposit interest rate to pay their tenants on CRLTO covered leases initiated in the new year.  The Chicago Residential Landlord Tenant Ordinance requires landlords in covered tenancies to pay interest on residential security deposits based upon […]

Every new year brings the requirement that landlords learn the new interest rate to be paid on certain residential security deposits.  2013 is no exception.  The Illinois Security Deposit Interest Act requires covered landlords to pay interest on certain residential security deposits based upon “the interest paid by the largest commercial bank, as measured by total assets, having its main […]

The City of Chicago has announced an increase in the cost of a “Certificate of Zoning Compliance” needed for the sale of all non-condominium/co-op residential properties consisting of five or fewer units.  The certification indicates the number of “legal” units in a residential property.  Real estate sellers in the City can expect to pay an additional $30 for the certification […]

UPDATE:  As part of the “fiscal cliff legislation”, congress has extended the MFDRA until December 31, 2013. In 2007, congress passed the federal Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act, a law that allowed taxpayers to exclude “forgiven” debt after a shortsale, foreclosure, or loan modification to be excluded from a person’s “income”.  That law is set to expire on December 31, […]

If you are a registered agent for an Illinois corporation, you may have received a notice in the mail from a company called “Corporate Records Service” offering to prepare annual minutes for a fee of $125.  Because I am a registered agent for many of my clients’ companies, I have seen it.  The paperwork they send looks “official”. 

Pre-approval letters in Chicago real estate deals really don’t mean anything.  There, I said it. I’ll say it again.  Pre-approvals don’t mean a thing.  I know it is hard to believe, but it’s true.  I probably average one telephone call a month from a confused seller-client who wants to know why the buyer needs a mortgage contingency extension when “they […]

One estate planning topic sure to become more and more important as we advance in the digital age is the issue of what to do with a person’s digital assets.  Our own Richard Magnone was interviewed about the topic for an article in the August 26, 2012 Chicago Tribune.  Right now, it seems, the most important task for estate planners […]