My Cousin Vinnie, the suburban real estate attorney, has been going to
his office (alone) everyday during the pandemic. He is
It has been more than delightful to hear from collegial friends like Ed
Rainen, Karen Johnson and others with new client referrals during these dreary
days.
Our home builder clients are essential businesses and they, and their
brokers and crews, continue to put homeowners together with new homes. God
bless them all.
Almost everybody has been patient and understanding with the
complexities involved in providing services, and the precautions involved in
performing closing transactions.
I am glad that REBA is keeping track of the emergency legislation and
working on ways to keep business moving forward.
My reduction in income has been offset from savings from restaurants,
sporting events and travel. I feel bad for my dry-cleaner.
I was surprised to find attorneys with fancy downtown addresses that needed
more time to respond to my case citations in memorandums because their only
access to legal research materials was within the now-closed courthouse law
libraries. Huh?
Conference calls that should take 20 minutes take an hour because
everyone on the call is thrilled to have some form of human contact, and they
don’t want it to end.
I have a suggestion on how people can spend some of their spare time:
order some new casual clothes on-line. Too many people on Zoom meetings look
like they are dressed for gardening.
From the video conferences I have learned that a lot of people have
very nice kitchens with custom cabinetry and tray ceilings.
I learned how to insert fake photos into backgrounds in a Zoom
conference; so now it looks like I have a 5,000 sq ft kitchen, overlooking the
ocean.
Some towns were early adopters to using video conferences for public
hearings. Some other towns, not so much. I found my local planning board to be empathetic
that applicants had been waiting for many weeks for a hearing, and they did
whatever they could to move the process forward.
I spent a weekend binge watching Massachusetts corruption on TV, and
now I find it hard to distinguish between the fiction in “City on a Hill”, and
the non-fiction in “How to Fix a Drug Scandal”.
Although I am glad that Chapter 53 of the Acts of 2020 was enacted to
deal with some of the land use permitting issues, I am concerned about the
potential implications of the provisions which state: “..a permit granting
authority may contest the completeness of an application at the time of filing
if the application is ultimately denied by the permitting board on other grounds
or if the permit is ultimately appealed by the applicant.”
I need a haircut.
A former REBA president, Paul Alphen currently serves
on the association’s executive committee and co-chairs the long-range planning
committee. He is also a member of the
Executive Committee of the Abstract Club. 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.
