A woman in Aurora called me last spring, not about buying or selling, but because her mother had passed away owning her house free and clear, no mortgage, no will drawn up in twenty years. She assumed the house was hers already since she was the only child. It wasn't, not legally, not until the estate cleared probate court, a process that took almost eight months and cost more in filing and attorney fees...
A client of mine who owns a rental property in Parker got an email a few months back from the county letting her know a document had just been recorded against her address. She hadn't sold anything, hadn't refinanced, hadn't signed a thing. It turned out to be a filing error, nothing sinister, but for about twenty minutes she was convinced someone had taken her house out from under her. That's exactly the...
A client of mine in a Lone Tree townhome had a neighbor's washing machine overflow into her unit last spring. Water came through the ceiling, ruined the flooring, and damaged cabinets she'd upgraded when she bought the place. She assumed the HOA's master insurance policy would cover it. It didn't, not most of it. The master policy covered the shared structure. Everything inside her unit's walls was on her,...
A seller asked me recently whether it mattered that the agent bringing her a full-price offer also represented the buyer. It's a fair question, and the honest answer is: it depends on what "represented" means in that specific transaction, and Colorado's rules on this are more layered than most people realize.Colorado's default isn't full representation at allHere's the part that surprises most buyers and...
Picture this. You find a home you love, you write what feels like a strong offer, and you still lose to someone who came in higher. After that happens once, a lot of buyers ask me the same thing: can we just tell the seller we will beat any other offer? That instinct is exactly what an escalation clause tries to do. It can be a smart tool. It can also backfire. Let me walk you through both sides so you can...
A brand new home can come with a metro district tax you have never heard of. Here is how Colorado metro districts work and what to ask before you make an offer.
About half of all homes in Colorado have radon levels high enough that the EPA recommends doing something about them. That is not a scare statistic - it is just the reality of living on top of the kind of soil and rock we have here. The good news is that radon is one of the easiest home problems to find and fix, as long as you actually test for it. If you are buying or selling a home in the Denver metro,...
Most people I meet who qualify for Colorado's senior property tax exemption have no idea it exists. I've sat at closing tables in Parker and Highlands Ranch with sellers in their 70s, owners who had been in the same house for decades, and when I mentioned the exemption they looked at me like I'd handed them a coupon they were never told about. So let's fix that. If you're 65 or older and you've owned your...
In much of Colorado, the minerals under your home may belong to someone else. Here is what a severed mineral estate means and how to check before you buy.
You found the perfect lot in Franktown, or maybe you have a builder lined up in Castle Pines, and then you hit the question nobody prepared you for: how do you actually pay for a house that does not exist yet? Building a home is different from buying one, and the financing works differently too. A regular mortgage funds a finished house. A construction loan funds the process of building it, in stages, with...
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