Last year about this time I signed up for Harvest Sacramento. I must have signed up too late because they never came over in 2011. But they did show up yesterday. This is a great program available through Soil Born Farms. They send over volunteers to pick your fruit, and it's donated to food banks. You even get a tax deductible receipt, which I was not prepared for. It's like an added bonus. You get your oranges picked, they go to feed somebody hungry and you get a tax write-off.
From our little tiny naval orange tree, they picked more than 100 pounds of oranges. There are still some oranges left. They offered to leave some oranges but I said no, take them all. If we want oranges, we'll buy them from the Sacramento Co-Op. Shows you how much I eat oranges.
I watched the volunteers, mostly students, in the yard with their long-arm picking poles, and it made me think of arm's length agreements in short sales. As a Sacramento short sale agent, I'm always thinking about short sales. I canceled a listing a few weeks ago because the seller decided to sell to her neighbor. I had explained that I would have to disclose to the lender her relationship with the neighbor because the lender makes me sign a statement saying I have no knowledge of such shenanigans.
The sellers didn't care. They wanted to sell that short sale to their neighbor and arm's-length agreement be damned. That's not how I do business. I don't even tread lightly on mortgage fraud. Nothing is worth it. Nothing. There is no question in my mind. It's a very black-and-white matter to me, no gray.
What sellers don't consider is they get a release of liability in a Sacramento short sale because of SB 458. If they commit short sale fraud, that release of liability may no longer apply. That's right. If the parties violate the terms of an arm's length agreement, that lender might now have the right to go after the seller for a deficiency. To demand payment on the difference between what the home sold at and the amount owed. The benefits of SB 458 can fly right out the window. Why would anybody risk it?
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Certified HAFA Specialist
My Sacramento Real Estate Listings
Elizabeth Weintraub is an author, home buying columnist for The New York Times-owned About.com, a Land Park resident, and a Land Park real estate agent who specializes in older, classic homes in Land Park, Curtis Park, Midtown and East Sacramento. Weintraub is also a Sacramento Short Sale agent who lists and successfully sells short sales throughout the four-county Sacramento area. Call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759. Put 35 years of real estate experience to work for you. Broker-Associate at Lyon Real Estate. DRE License # 00697006.
The Short Sale Savior, by Elizabeth Weintraub, available at Amazon.com.
Lyon Real Estate is not associated with the government, and our service is not approved by the government or your lender. Even if you accept this offer and use our service, your lender may not agree to change your loan.
Photo: Unless otherwise noted in this blog, the photo is copyrighted by Big Stock Photo and used with permission.
The views expressed herein are Weintraub's personal views and do not reflect the views of Lyon Real Estate.
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