I took my cousin Vinnie, the suburban real estate
attorney, to a Celtics game recently. He always has a hard time reaching a
As we started our usual
exchange of war stories, I told Vinnie the story about a proposed P&S came
across my desk for an expensive new home in an exclusive neighborhood, and I
recognized the name of the buyer; and it was not just because he was a member
of a prominent local family. I called my builder client and told him that the
same buyer had attempted to buy fancy houses from two of my other builder
clients during the past few years, but at each closing when it came time for
the buyer to deliver a bank check, all we received was a story about how the
family wealth was tied up in an off-shore trust account and it would take a
week to deliver all of the funds. One of my builder clients had given the keys
to the buyer before we were told the off-shore-trust-fund story, and our
construction foreman had to rush to the house to change the locks before the
moving van arrived. True story.
Vinnie told me to watch out for cell tower lease assignment
agreements that essentially convey all rights in the cell towers and the land
they are constructed upon in perpetuity. “There are a lot of cell tower lease
acquisition companies out there, and some of them disguise the conveyance of
the land rights in the boilerplate of the assignment. Sometimes the property
owners don’t discover that they sold their land until 20 years later.” I
thanked him for the tip while negotiating a littleneck from its shell in my
cioppino stew.
Vinnie continued: “Paulie, after a
few mishaps I am now performing ‘internet-checks’ from time to time
regarding parties on the other side of most deals. For years I have been correcting
title references and seller information when preparing or reviewing P&S
agreements provided by sellers. And, more and more recently I have come across sellers
who forgot that they had conveyed the property into a trust, or forgot that
they conveyed out a sliver of their land 10 years ago. But recently I typed the
name of a builder/seller into the registry web site and like a slot machine out
rolled nothing but pages and pages of
‘execution, execution, attachment, execution, attachment, attachment,
attachment…’ I now use internet searches on a regular basis.”
Without taking a bite, Vinnie
continued with an even better story. “I had a client that was about to partner
with a new guy on a nice commercial project. I had a few conversations with him
and I was troubled that he didn’t seem to follow my explanation of pre-existing
non-conforming structures. The guy claimed to be a big time developer, but I
got a funny feeling about him. I typed his name into Google™ and all kinds of
interesting stories tumbled out. I found old newspaper stories about drug
charges, charges of shoddy construction and a bankruptcy. I then typed his name
into the Registry of Deeds website and found numerous executions and
foreclosures. I then called my client and asked if he knew about the guy’s
sorted past, and he did not. I thought it was odd that it took an old guy like
me to know how to effectively use the Internet!”
“Crazy” was all I could say. But,
in the future I am going to take Vinnie’s counsel and perform more background
checks.
A columnist for REBA News
former REBA president, Paul Alphen currently serves on the association’s
executive committee and co-chairs the long-range planning committee. He is a partner in the Westford firm of
Alphen & Santos, P.C. and concentrates in residential and commercial real
estate development, land use regulation, administrative law, real estate
transactional practice and title examination .As entertaining as he finds the
practice of law, Paul enjoys numerous hobbies, including messing around with
his power boats and fulfilling his bucket list of visiting every Major League
ballpark. Paul can be contacted at palphen@alphensantos.com
